


Destiny Veiled S1

by Elly_Sea



Series: Destiny Veiled Saga [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: "I have to do it because some seer said so" is lazy character motivation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Kilgharrah Conspiracy Theory has a point, Why are all these prophecies so self-fulfilling?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-09-24 10:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 129,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17098883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elly_Sea/pseuds/Elly_Sea
Summary: No young man, no matter how great, can know his destiny.Twenty years ago in the Great Purge, Uther killed the last dragon as he does every single other magical threat. Now, a young man has arrived in Camelot, unsure of his gifts and his place in the world. With no mysterious, all-knowing magical creature telling him what to do at every point, he must find his own way in the world.Third part of the Destiny Veiled Saga. I highly recommend you first read Season 0 and Interlude: Between Your Land and Mine.





	1. 1x01 - When Destiny Comes Calling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** this is part 3 of my Destiny Veiled Saga. You may certainly attempt to read it without having first read _Season 0_ or _Interlude: Between Your Land and Mine_ , but you will undoubtedly be very confused.
> 
> Also, I will be assuming you all know what happened in the show and I don't have to spend forever describing things that didn't change. If you _don't_ know what happened in the show, I'm really not sure why you're reading its fanfiction.

" _Where's_ the target?" drawled a mocking boyish voice, full of youthful cockiness. It carried over the noise of the busy street and drew Merlin's attention to the owner.

A young golden-haired, deceptively heroic looking nobleman was doing "moving target practice" with his underprepared, unequipped servant. The servant looked to be perhaps a year or so younger than Merlin, and absolutely terrified as knives came flying at a heavy shield his stick-like arms were straining to hold up to block his head. As the knives – which, to be fair to the noble, were not even coming close to missing the board and causing injury – flew faster and faster, the servant dropped the shield in his haste to evade. It rolled across the ground, the servant scrambling frantically after it.

Merlin put his foot down, quite literally, fed up with the harassment and under the impression that none of the other spectators were going to do anything about it.

"Hey, come on, that's enough," he tried, hoping that this was just a case of friendly teasing taken too far that could be easily solved with a nice, civilized discussion that his mother would approve of. It hadn't particularly looked like that when he walked over, but maybe the young noble could be reasonable, he tried to think optimistically.

Because the alternative was that, on his first full day in a new city, he was about to make enemies out of entitled rich brats who could make his life a living hell. After being explicitly told to keep out of trouble _and_ the first thing he'd seen in said city being an example of what happened to a sorcerer who drew too much scrutiny.

"What?" the noble scoffed, surprise the predominant expression on his face, as though he couldn’t believe he heard correctly.

"You've had your fun, my friend." Merlin tried again, still hoping they could do this like civilized adults, even if the other boy was being rather…

"Do I know you?"

"Er, I'm Merlin…"

"So I _don't_ know you."

… like a pompous rude self-absorbed scuffle-mudgeoned bleat-brain.

"No," Merlin said, still aiming for civility but definitely not able to keep up the friendly attitude. He could hear the temperature of his voice drop significantly in that one word, and he withdrew the hand he'd held out to politely introduce himself, feeling stupid for hoping they could do this the nice, easy way.

"Yet you called me friend," the other boy drawled, drawing out the word _friend_ like Merlin had made some laughably audacious claim instead of trying to stop a spoiled-rotten man-child from letting his ego and wealth and blood dictate who was allowed to throw knives at whom.

He made Dareth and all Merlin’s other _friends_ back home look like sweet, well-mannered young men. "Yeah, that was my mistake."

The blond noble smugly agreed and began to walk away.

Merlin had two choices right then: he could swallow his pride and dignity and let the noble walk away having put the uppity peasant in his place, and save himself a lot of trouble. Or he could tell this stuck-up rich boy _exactly_ what the people he looked down on for not being born with silver spoons in their mouths _actually_ thought of him - which was something he'd wager no one else had done in a long time, if ever.

"Yeah… I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass."

Having gotten the last word in, Merlin turned to go… only to be stopped by the noble _also_ trying to get the last word in.

"Nor I one would could be so _stupid_." There was the low but distinct sound of a hand grabbing one of the hilts in his belt.

Turning back, Merlin saw his snarky parting comeback had earned him the young noble's undivided attention. From the look on his face, to the fact that he was gripping his sword, to the equal amounts of rising anger and dislike coursing through Merlin, everything about the situation screamed one thing: this could not end well.

 # \ # \ # \ #

"Oh God."

Merlin ducked his head down so he was staring at the pulverized rotten mess on the ground in front of him. He instinctually tried to back away from the objects flying towards his face, but the wooden frame he was stuck in prevented this and dug painfully into his neck besides. A soft object connected with his scalp, bursting on impact and showering him in smelly gooey ooze.

At least the children throwing inedible foods at him seemed to be having a good time and the passersby, including Gaius, were laughing.

"Thanks," he called out after him passive-aggressively, also laughing in spite of himself.

A squishy red fruit he didn't recognize but seemed to be a favourite among the mischievous gathered children hit him squarely in the mouth. He was spitting out repulsive seedy flesh even after an ammunition shortage gave him a short reprieve as his pint-sized tormentors left to restock.

The red hem of a well-made women’s cloak of inexpensive cloth came into his view. He looked up, curious over who had dared brave the stench.

She was a girl around his age whose ancestral roots must have come from some far off corner of the old empire, for her dark complexion and frizz of curls were features he'd never seen before. They suited her well, giving her a unique prettiness that was warm and friendly.

"I'm Guinevere, but most people call me Gwen,” she said, smiling. “I'm the Lady Morgana's maid."

"Right, I'm Merlin," he stretched his hand through its hole in the stocks as far as he could, awkwardly shaking her hand and hoping doing so didn’t smear her with unmentionably awful smelling guck.

They chatted for a bit, and Merlin found he enjoyed talking with someone his age who hadn’t grown up hearing strange tales about Hunith's boy and wasn’t an uppity noble like _Prince_ Arthur bloody Pendragon – because only Merlin would be able to, in a crowd of people, unwittingly single out and antagonize the son of the man who'd want him dead if he knew who and what Merlin was.

Gwen was like a breath of fresh air, though, the first person in Camelot to show him pure kindness without any drawbacks (like leaving him in the stocks like that traitor Gaius had). She was kind, she had a sense of humour, and she didn't think he was an idiot. He thought that they could be good friends.

Unfortunately, the children came back armed with overflowing baskets of rotten vegetables and the red fruits that Merlin was beginning to hate without ever having tasted. "Oh, excuse me, Guinevere. My fans are waiting."

His new friend beat a hasty retreat so as to avoid joining him in stinking to high heaven, and Merlin was back to his futile flinching from the vile onslaught.

Merlin’s entire body was stiff and cramped by the time a smirking guard unlocked him from the stocks. He stretched out with a groan, flicking his wrists to try and get rid of the feeling of pins and needles, and stumbled down streets emptying as stall owners closed up for supper hour. The remaining stragglers parted in front of him in waves of people pinching their noses, and his cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

He passed a little girl outside an odd vegetable stall whose large basket of produce immediately caught his eye. There, among other odd and unfamiliar foods, were the now horribly familiar squishy red fruits.

So _this_ was the origin of half the slime on him.

The fruit girl was about the same age as the children who’d actually thrown her hell fruits. Though easily distinct with much darker features and a truly eye-popping, colorful dress boldly patterned in a way he’d never seen before, the fiendish amusement in her eyes as they flickered over his thoroughly splattered form was all too familiar.

“Yes, yes,” Merlin released the sigh he’d been bottling up all day in one half-mocking heave. “I know I look like I’ve been rolling around in compost, no thanks to you and your evil fruit.”

She cocked her head as if she hadn’t understood, and he gave a pointed nod to her basket. She glanced down and then back up at Merlin's pulp-plastered upper body. A mischievous grin broke across her face, and she picked up a shiny red fruit.

"Tomatl?" she asked with faux innocence, offering it out to him.

Merlin emphatically shook his head, and she laughed. She drew back her arm as though to throw the hell fruit and after all those hours in the stocks Merlin couldn’t help it, he flinched. The girl laughed again and returned her merchandise to its basket, instead pulling out a square of brightly patterned cloth from a pile of others wedged to the side closest to her.

She held the cloth out to Merlin, who took it bemusedly. "Timochipahua," she said, miming scrubbing her face, and repeated slower as though that would make the strange syllables more understandable. "Ti... mo... chi… pa… hua."

"Oh," Merlin said, coloring a bit as he realised she probably hadn’t understood him either. He gratefully wiped the worst of the pulp off himself. "Er, thanks."

He continued on his way feeling slightly better now that the street didn’t clear in front of him, and when he entered Gaius' quarters the old man raised a brow at him.

"You look remarkably clean, considering the last I saw you, you were anything but."

Merlin went to change into his spare set of clothes, shouting an explanation about the fruit girl down the stairs. When he came back down in a tunic and trousers that weren't stained and reeking, Gaius commented, "I believe the fruits you're thinking of are tomatoes. A foreigner named Tenoch introduced them to the market thirty years ago, and he's been selling them here ever since. I heard his granddaughter came to help him for the summer - that was probably who you met."

"Where are they from?" Merlin asked, curious about the tomato girl's exotic clothing and language.

"I don't know. Tenoch is very tight lipped about where he and his wares come from."

"Why?"

"Because it gives him a monopoly over the market, I'd expect." Gaius said dismissively, sitting down at the table where supper lay waiting. Merlin's stomach rumbled, and he eagerly sank down across from the old man, reaching towards the food with relish.

Gaius asked far too innocently, "Do you want some vegetables with that?"

 # \ # \ # \ #

The next morning Merlin was leisurely checking out the market in the lower town, when a gratingly arrogant voice called out to him,

"How's your knee-walking coming along?"

_Just ignore him_ , Merlin chanted to himself, determinedly putting one foot in front of another and not even looking to where the spoiled prince was. If his mother was here she'd say that refusing to rise to provocation was the best retaliation, and after the fiasco yesterday when ignoring the advice of his elders had led to imprisonment and horrid smells, he wasn't keen on making the same mistake twice.

"Aw, don't run away!" Arthur crowed, as though in ignoring him Merlin had lost by default.

On the other hand, Merlin thought, what his mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

He dug his heels into the ground. "From you?"

"Thank God. I thought you were deaf as well as dumb."

"Look, I've told you you're an ass." Merlin turned to face the pampered prince. "I just didn't realise you were a _royal_ one."

The ensuing argument drew more and more people’s attention, raising the stakes; after talking big in front of so many witnesses, there was no way Merlin was going to back down as if he thought Arthur was right when he could have defeated this arrogant ass when he was _five_.

Just two minutes later though, fallen to the ground and backed against a table at a nearby stall, Merlin was questioning if he was in over his head. Then, he got an idea.

It only took a split second for Arthur's mace to jumble around low hanging shop equipment, with no one the wiser for how it had happened. Merlin leapt to his feet, glancing around in triumph, and discretely moved a few more things to gain the upper hand in the fight.

A thrill coursed through Merlin. Revelling in the cheers of the crowd of onlookers, Merlin recalled Gwen's words about the people thinking him a hero. Then Merlin's grin faltered; there, among the throng was, Gaius. His dour face promised a great deal of admonishment in the near future.

Before Merlin could contemplate his impending scolding, however, a hit to the back of his head sent him careening forwards, groaning and disorientated. His eyes had snapped shut in pain, but he could well imagine the prince's smug smirk.

Two gauntleted hands dragged Merlin to his feet, and he inwardly swore blue at his lapse in attention.

"Wait," came an unexpected command from Merlin's opponent. "Let him go."

The hands holding him reluctantly withdrew, as the two red and silver figures in his side vision obeyed. "He may be an idiot," the most baffling bully Merlin had ever met elaborated, "but he's a brave one."

Arthur took a step forwards, a sharp, searching look in his eyes. "There's something about you, Merlin. I can't quite put my finger on it."

With those disquieting words, the prince and his entourage departed, leaving Merlin with his upturned expectations of reality. Arthur had just let him go, after they'd just tried to bash each other's brains in, when only yesterday he'd had him jailed for trying to sock him. What had changed between now and then, to make Arthur… sort of a half-way decent guy, for a spoiled-rotten bully?

Had he gotten some measure of respect from the prince for pigheadedly attempting to smash his head in with a mace, despite all common sense screaming that it was a bad idea?

The thought process of nobles was truly a mystery, Merlin reflected.

Further ponderings of the contradiction that was Arthur Pendragon were put on hold, however, as Merlin's guardian silently marched him back to the Royal Physician's chambers, and began scolding him before even slamming the door.

 # \ # \ # \ #

The next day on an errand for Gaius, Merlin entered a lady's chamber to give her a sleeping potion. However, he found himself unable to speak, let alone announce himself, when he looked on her fine ivory face and flowing dark tresses of hair. He was certain he’d never seen anyone so beautiful before, but there was something was nagging at him… something about her… something _familiar_ …

"You know I've been thinking about Arthur," the lady said, too focused on grooming herself to notice her silent visitor’s puzzlement. "I wouldn't touch him with a lance pole."

She stepped behind some kind of tall screen. "Pass me that dress, would you, Gwen."

And, visible over the top of the screen, the lady contorted her arms as if beginning to undress.

_That_ snapped Merlin out of his daze. Hurriedly, Merlin glanced around and grabbed the lady's dress, leaving it atop her screen. He silently deposited the sleeping draught on her table, and was sneaking back to the door when the lady called on him again, unknowingly foiling his escape.

The longer he stayed in the room, trapped in his unwitting pretense of being Gwen and therefore duty bound to help the lady, the more he could not speak up to admit that firstly he was not Gwen, secondly he wasn't even a girl, and thirdly he'd been here the whole time she was undressing. He wished desperately, edging towards the door only to be stopped again by the lady herself, that he had just knocked before he came in or else announced himself at the door _before_ she stepped behind the screen – whose purpose was rather apparent _now_.

"I need some help with this fastening," the lady requested again, giving Merlin a horrible moment of indecision. There was no way he was stepping behind the screen to help her, but the question was this: should he announce himself and pray the lady was good humoured, or make a dash for the door and hope she didn't see him?

"Gwen?" she called out when no maid appeared to fasten her dress.

"I'm here," called back a voice from the doorway. Merlin spun, and there was Gwen, who with just a look questioned what he was doing.

Thanking his lucky stars for her good timing, Merlin tried to express how she was a life saver – perhaps even literally, he didn't know all the laws around here but so far they hadn't been on his side – with just facial expression. He gestured and mouthed his dilemma to Gwen, who nodded and stepped forward to cover for him. She disappeared behind the screen and he shot her one last grateful look, heartened he'd found such a good friend so quickly.

Only once he was half way down the stairs, once his heart rate had calmed and his brain resumed normal function, did he remember that odd feeling that he almost recognised the noblewoman. But no matter how he raked his memory, he couldn't figure out why that was.

 # \ # \ # \ #

Logically Merlin knew that the king's son would attend his father's festivities at the castle, but the sight of him laughing idiotically with his gang of bullying cohorts still took away from the otherwise marvellous sights of the court feast. His own name jumped out of the low mumble of whatever story Arthur was dramatically re-enacting to their great amusement, and he could hazard a guess that nothing complimentary was being said.

He wondered what Arthur would do if he caught sight of him – would he goad him again, or would he not want to cause a scene in such a public setting? Yesterday morning Merlin wouldn't have had second thoughts about Arthur acting like a spoiled five-year-old wherever he was, but after he let him go Merlin had to admit that maybe Arthur Pendragon wasn't entirely irredeemable. Still a royal ass, but not the mean-spiritedness incarnated he'd seemed upon their introduction.

Arthur glanced over his over his shoulder just then and his eyes widened. For a split second Merlin thought he was about to have his question answered, but then Arthur's face morphed into a gobsmacked expression. Doubting he could have spurred that reaction, Merlin craned his neck around to see whoever had.

He needn't have bothered, for at that very moment she glided past him, and Merlin was sure his face was just as ridiculously slack jawed as the prince's. Made up perfectly, each strand of hair tied in its artistic place, and dressed in a revealing red gown that daringly showed off her bare shoulders and back, she was easily the most gorgeous woman Merlin had ever seen.

Though Gaius chided him for his distraction from his "work" – learning the names and faces of all of Gaius' patients who were in attendance, from the king himself to the lowliest serving maid, as well as the proper behavior to use with each of them, something Gaius apparently decided he needed lessons on after the fiasco with the prince – Merlin couldn't keep his eyes off of the beautiful noblewoman for long.

"She looks great, doesn't she," came Gwen's voice from his side. He hadn't noticed her approach, but then he had been rather distracted. From the pride in his new friend's words he took it to mean that this was her mistress – the Lady Morgana whom he'd barely escaped an embarrassing introduction to due to Gwen's good timing and kind spirit.

The lady in question was now talking with Arthur, and Merlin peered at them trying to work out their relationship. It would just figure if it turned out that she was Arthur's sweetheart, despite her less than complimentary rant earlier. She hadn't seemed the sort to fall for Arthur for his good-looks and power; but then if she wouldn't touch him with a lance pole, why was she happily chatting with him?

Gwen's face shone with admiration for her mistress as she sighed at the picture the two nobles made. "Some people are just born to be queen."

"No!" burst out from him before he could stop himself.

The lady might be too far above him to do more than admire from afar, but the idea that _Arthur_ would one day marry her, for no better reason than that he was the prince and she was a beautiful noblewoman, was just nauseating. Life, Merlin reflected for the umpteenth time since his arrival in Camelot, was so unfair.

"I hope so, one day." Gwen said, then rushed to add, as though worried Merlin might be thinking she was getting ambitions beyond her station, "Not that I would want to be her." Tacking on rhetorically, as though it was so self-evident any self-respecting woman would think this it hardly needed saying, Guinevere scoffed, "Who'd want to marry _Arthur_?"

"Oh, come on, Gwen," Merlin teased with a laugh, imagining Arthur’s face if he’d heard that. "I thought you like those real rough, tough, save the world kind of men."

"No, I like much more ordinary men like you," she teased back in a somewhat strange tone that he wasn't sure what to make of.

"Gwen, believe me," Merlin laughed, though Gwen was unfortunately out of the loop for how absurd her words were and therefore probably didn't seen the humour in them. "I'm not ordinary."

"No, I didn't mean _you_ , obviously. Not _you_ ," Gwen was quick to refute. "But just, you know, I like much more ordinary men... _like_ you."

"Thanks," Merlin said, wondering if he should be offended. As awkward silence settled between him and Gwen, he sought to escape it by feigning fascination in Morgana and Arthur.

Morgana was reeling back, away from Arthur, her countenance very frigid as if Arthur had offended her – which Merlin could well believe. Something about her just then brought on that feeling that he recognized her somehow, but the reason why still eluded him.

Well, at least he had something to dispel the awkward silence. "From the look of things, the crown is slipping away from your lady."

"More like launching away," Gwen retorted good-naturedly, sounding relieved they’d moved past that awkward little hiccup. "As she chucks it at his head."

Merlin laughed at the mental image of Arthur on bended knee offering Morgana a crown, which she then threw back at him. Morgana's face twisted with the haughtiest of distain, and it was easy to believe she would do just that. But more than that, at her cold aloof expression something clicked in Merlin's mind, and he finally realized why Morgana looked so familiar: she was the spitting image of another wealthy young court woman.

"Does Morgana have an older sister named Vivienne?" he asked Gwen, complicated emotions coursing through him.

He doubtlessly owed Vivienne his life, but if he encountered her here in Camelot it could end very badly for him. He hoped desperately she was still off with her crazy cult, or else married to some lord who lived far away. He scanned the sea of faces, but he didn't see hers among either the gathered nobles or servants.

"No," Gwen responded, perplexed. It struck Merlin then that his question had come out of nowhere and must seem quite random; especially as it turned out he was wrong. "Morgana's an only child. Vivienne was her mother's name, but she died years ago when Morgana was very young. She hardly remembers her."

"Oh," Merlin said, his mind in turmoil. "Er, my mistake. I must've misheard that somewhere."

Gwen gave him an unconvinced look, apparently not biting the poor excuse Merlin had just given. But Merlin had a more pressing problem than his pathetic lying skills:

_Did I meet Morgana's mother?_

It didn't make sense. Morgana looked to be similar in age to Merlin; if her mother died when she was too young to remember her then Merlin couldn't have met her in that awful incident when he was nine. Although it had been years ago – was he misremembering what Vivienne looked like, making a connection where none existed? But it seemed a fantastic coincidence to make up a connection to a woman whose mother bore the same name.

But Vivienne had been so _young_ …

He wrestled with it until the horns sounded to announce the king's arrival, providing a welcome distraction. The assembled courtiers took their places at the tables, standing in rows facing the long empty stretch between the head table and the grand entrance way. Gwen excused herself to go stand behind the tables with the other servants, waiting to be called upon to serve. Merlin, not exactly sure where he was supposed to go, backed into a servants' entrance.

Uther entered from the main doors, dressed in regal yet practical clothes. He was smiling genially, laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes, looking for all the world like a benevolent ruler. If Merlin hadn't known whose court he was in and heard the man himself announce his name, he never would have pegged this kind looking middle-aged man as the boogeyman of his childhood.

His life had been much simpler when men in red were sinister monsters lurking out of sight, not merely men who also wore clothing that wasn't the colour of blood and had faces that could smile in genuine good will. He wished he hadn't seen Uther Pendragon; it was so much easier to hate someone who was one-dimensional.

The room burst into applause, the courtiers taking their seats, and Merlin realised he'd missed most of Uther's speech. He followed the gaze of the people in the main room, looking to a dais near the entrance. A woman in a bright yellow gown walked on stage and began to sing. Lady Helen, Merlin recognised, a rude and snappish lady with a strange doll and book in her room which had both felt off to him, though he couldn't name _why_.

Her singing was very lovely but, though he could again see no reason why, something about it set Merlin on edge.

The song crescendoed, more powerful now than sweet, and the unpleasantness sharpened. At the tables, people slumped over in sleep too sudden to be natural, rows upon rows falling as the crescendo rose. Hastily, Merlin covered his ears.

Lady Helen strode forwards, her now muffled voice no less lovely but its tone changing to match the disturbing spectacle, becoming harsher. Around the sleeping figures cobwebs upon cobwebs grew, as though years were passing with each note. Merlin grew frantic. This was undeniably an enchantment, and it didn't look like a harmless one. He glanced around for Gwen, seeing her lying covered in webs on the floor, and Gaius, who was slumped over the table and caught in the master web running down its length.

The enchantress only had eyes for one of her many victims however: the boy seated to the right of the king. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled a knife from her sleeve, raising it as her song crescendoed to an alarming high, shrill pitch. She drew her arm back, the tip of the blade pointed straight at the prince. With a wave of horror, Merlin realised she was going to throw it.

As if guided by a force beyond himself, his eyes rose upwards and alighted upon the chandelier suspended there. All Merlin felt was a desperate idea tug at a corner of his mind, and the pull of his magic rushing out of him to accomplish it. With a mighty crash, the chandelier fell onto the enchantress, breaking her song and sending her crumpled to the floor.

The people at the tables stirred, bemusedly pulling at the cobwebs covering them and blinking around in confusion. Merlin's breathing evened; they were fine.

Then his brain caught up with his actions.

What had he just _done_? He'd just seriously injured, possibly even killed, someone. And he hadn't been thinking about unenchanting the room, not at the moment when he acted anyways. It had been because she was pointing a knife at Arthur. Since when did he care whether people threw knives at Arthur? He didn't like him; he was rude, conceited, and a bully – Arthur had been the one throwing knives around the first time they'd met! What on earth had possessed him to assault someone – albeit someone who was acting against innocent bystanders in her murder attempt – to save _Arthur_ , of all people!

With a pained groan, the crumpled figure on the floor pushed herself upwards, revealing the old lined face of the executed man's mother. Pieces fell together in Merlin's head: _An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son_.

With one last desperate spurt of strength, the dying woman threw the knife.

The world slowed around him and, in that split second he had to decide, he found that it didn’t matter if it was Arthur, who went around throwing knives himself, who needed saving. Merlin was sprinting forwards as the flying blade drew closer and closer to its target, grabbing Arthur by the shoulder and flinging them both to the ground. Time resumed its normal passage and there was a thud of a sharp object into solid wood - Merlin had made it.

Mrs Collins sank to the ground, either dead or unconscious, but doomed either way. This was Camelot, and she had used magic. She was unable to defend herself now, if she yet lived. Whether or not the chandelier had killed her, she would be dead by the morrow.

Dazedly, Merlin got to his feet, painfully aware of a roomful of eyes on him. Perhaps Gaius was right and he was an incurable fool, because he'd been warned against drawing attention to himself all his life, and within just the last few days he'd gotten into trouble repeatedly for ignoring those warnings. And now, in front of a roomful of witnesses, he'd used magic to save the son of the man who would kill him for it.

You couldn’t get much more colossally stupid than this.

The king stepped forwards, and Merlin took an instinctual step back. He wrestled with the urge to run. Most of the people hadn't been completely awake when he'd moved; perhaps it hadn’t been obvious that Merlin had been too far away to reach Arthur naturally. If Uther hadn't noticed and he ran he'd incriminate himself over nothing. But if Uther did know… would he be able to run fast enough to evade all the guards and knights in Uther's entire kingdom?

"You saved my boy's life," the king said in disbelieving relief, as though even though he was grateful he couldn't quite believe his own words. "A debt must be repaid."

Honestly, all Merlin wanted was to disappear back into the anonymity of the servants' entrance he had so foolhardily leapt out of. He'd sleep much better if Uther Pendragon forgot he even existed. "Um, well…"

"Don't be so modest," Uther insisted, misinterpreting Merlin's reluctance. "You shall be rewarded."

"No, honestly, you don't have to, Your Highness," protested Merlin, still fighting back the urge to run even though it was clear Uther hadn't noticed Merlin's miraculous speed.

"No, absolutely. This merits something quite special,” Uther insisted, obviously not going to let him go until he'd accepted a reward.

The sooner Merlin agreed, the sooner he could leave and pray he'd be forgotten within a week – and who was he to argue with extra money? "Well…"

"You shall be rewarded a position in the royal household." Not exactly what Merlin was thinking of, but it still sounded good. At least until the king continued, as though bestowing a great honour on him, with, "You shall be Prince Arthur's manservant."

 # \ # \ # \ #

It felt like for every one step forward he took, the world maliciously set him back two steps.

In what demented, sick person's mind was it an honour to be Arthur's servant? Wasn't that the position the boy Arthur had been throwing knives at held, or did Merlin misinterpret that? Did Uther not care he was putting the poor boy out of a job… or had the poor boy quit, sick of “moving target practice”, and Merlin's "reward" was really just Uther filling up a hole in his staff?

In any case, it seemed irony of the cruelest sort that in saving Arthur from a knife thrown at him he'd damned himself to being the one the knives were thrown at, thrown by the person he rescued no less!

Gaius knocked on his door, entering without waiting for acknowledgement or permission. He had a red-wrapped rectangular package tucked under one arm which he moved to hold against his chest as he approached Merlin. "Seems you're a hero."

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Merlin half-joked, thinking of how just the day before Camelot as a whole seemed happy to dye him red with the pulp of rotting exotic fruit.

"No. I knew it from the moment I met you." Gaius refuted. "You saved my life, remember?"

"But… that was magic," Merlin pointed out, slightly disbelieving that he was being told this by _Gaius_. Honestly, he’d been half-convinced he was going to get another lecture.

But Gaius just nodded. "And now, it seems, we finally found a use for it."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw how you saved Arthur's life."

Merlin wished that was just a simple statement of a fact, and not an explanation for a possible use for his magic.

"Yeah, and if he wants a repeat performance he'd better be a whole lot nicer to me from now on," Merlin instantly shot down that idea.

Gaius opened his mouth, the set of his face forewarning his plans to override Merlin’s retort, but Merlin was having none of that. If it was pure idiotic recklessness to use magic _against_ Arthur, then it was just as reckless to use magic _for_ him. And unlike using magic to humiliate Arthur, Merlin didn't even get momentary satisfaction out of it.

"Look, I don't see why Arthur deserves special treatment. If I can use magic inconspicuously to help somebody I will, even if I don't like them. Indiscriminate help - that's what I'd call a good use of magic. But if Arthur wants me to stick my neck out for him again in front of his father – who'd be more than happy to put an axe through it right this second if he knew what he was _actually_ 'rewarding' me for doing – then he'd better bloody earn it."

Gaius appeared to consider Merlin’s words. He must have accepted them for he handed the red parcel to Merlin. "This was given to me when I was your age, but I have a feeling it will be of more use to you than it was to me."

Merlin took it from him, unwrapping the mysterious parcel curiously. It was a book, old and heavy, and bound in fine leather embossed with gold plates. Flipping through pages of beautiful script and illustrations, Merlin eyes went wide, darting over pictures of fantastic things and emboldened lines in a strange language.

As what he’d been given started to sink in, his smile could have outshone the sun.

# \ # \ # \ #

“Feormian linwæde.”

Merlin sat up straighter on his bed as the dirty clothes on his floor lifted into the air and threw themselves into the wash basin, sloshing soapy water over the rim. Merlin watched with a jubilant grin stretching from ear to ear.

It was no great feat of magic – he could have achieved the same result without a spell – but it had taken him twenty-three tries to get the pronunciation right. Merlin quickly flipped the pages of his new book, looking for a spell which would do his washing for him.

He’d initially tried more complicated pieces of magic, but when they’d failed he had been left unsure what the problem was. He’d quickly come to the conclusion he needed to take it slower, by starting off things he could already do. That way if he failed, he knew the cause had to be a garbled incantation.

Finding the spell, Merlin raised his hand towards the wash basin and read out, “Onþwéan linwæde.”

Nothing happened, as it hadn’t the first time he’d tried the other spells, and Merlin started fiddling around with the subtle nuances on each letter. He was undeterred that this was taking much longer than if he just walked over and did it manually; he needed the practice, and he was worn out from a day of ‘assisting’ Arthur train for some big tournament.

About half an hour earlier when telling Gaius about his first day on the job, he had summed up his experience in one word: horrible. It was difficult to say whether Arthur just plain didn’t know the difference between a practice dummy and a boy whose job it was to clean and fetch things, or if he just especially disliked Merlin and was out to torment him in every way imaginable. Either way, he seemed to be entirely unaffected by the fact that if it hadn’t been for Merlin he’d be entombed in cold white marble rather than swinging his sword around at hapless servants protected only by shoddy armour. It was a good thing Merlin hadn’t been expecting an overwhelming display of gratitude, because as it was he was tempted to ask Arthur if he had completely forgotten why Merlin had been given the dubious honour of being his dogsbody.

His blue tunic rose and began to scrub itself against the washing board, but Merlin’s glee was cut short by his door flying open. For a heart-stopping moment he thought he’d been caught, but then he noticed it was just Gaius and minutely relaxed. Then next moment he steeled himself against the lecture he knew was coming, and sure enough:

“I am beginning to wonder if those ears of yours are just decorations,” Gaius barked out scathingly. “How many times do I have to tell you to be careful! What if I had been someone else?”

“I know, I know,” Merlin grumbled. Seriously, how was it that it had only been three days and already Gaius sounded just like his mother?

Gaius raised one eyebrow at Merlin’s unrepentance, but mercifully left off further reprimands, merely informing Merlin that supper was ready. Merlin hid the book under a loose floorboard he was planning to put a million protection spells on the minute he worked out how to use them, and then followed him downstairs to the table.

At dinner, Gaius took a deep breath, as though he was bringing up a topic he needed to address but would rather he didn’t. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about what you did to save Arthur.” He paused for a moment as though weighing his words, and continued very carefully with, “Commendable though your actions were, I think it would be best if you didn’t use that type of magic again, even to save a life.”

“Why?” Merlin asked.

“Some branches of magic affect the balance of the world more than others. Time magic is notorious for unpredictable and widespread side effects, and though on this occasion you seem to have gotten away without any there’s no guarantee that next time you’d be so lucky.”

Gaius gave him a severe look, but Merlin must not have seemed convinced enough because Gaius stressed, “Don’t underestimate the consequences you could reap. Disturbing the flow of time is one of the most ancient of taboos. The last time a sorcerer broke it, it rained blood.”

Merlin’s spoon stilled halfway to his mouth. His voice sounded strange to his own ears as he asked, “What was that sorcerer’s name?”

“Vortigern,” Gaius confirmed Merlin’s suspicions. He seemed reassured that Merlin was suitably disturbed by the potential side effect, unaware the words hit so personally. “He was the king of Camelot before Uther. I told you that in the days before the Purge people were using magic for the wrong ends; well, the worst of that occurred during Vortigern’s reign. He died long before you were born, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that he was not a sorcerer you’d want to follow in the footsteps of.”

_Oh but you’re wrong,_ Merlin desperately wanted to say, but didn’t know how to voice such a ludicrous story without sounding insane even to someone like Gaius. _I don’t have to take your word for anything. I saw firsthand the kind of sorcerer Vortigern was._

Faded memories of the incident rose to the surface of his mind like a swimmer struggling from dark depths to reach the light above. All that talk of an ancient taboo. Vortigern declaring that he was the king of Camelot. Vivienne who bore the same name as Lady Morgana’s mother. The way no time seemed to have passed when he and Will returned. Vivienne’s words about what’s-his-name who Vortigern had been trying to summon not having been born yet and her horror at the sight of Merlin.

Merlin had been dragged decades into the past, back to before he was born, and hadn’t even realised it.

“So you understand the gravity of distorting the flow of time,” Gaius pressed. Though he seemed mostly satisfied Merlin was not taking his words lightly, he also seemed to want a definitive verbal confirmation. Merlin didn’t feel up to voicing anything just then, so he nodded instead, his mind feeling detached from his body.

He could have died years before his own birth, and no one would have ever known what happened to him.

_Aithusa_ , he thought suddenly with the usual stab of loneliness and guilt. She’d been locked away under a hill for longer than he’d realised. Thirty years? Forty years? Was she still sleeping, dreaming away of a day that he had only taken baby steps towards in all the decades she’d slumbered through?

Something occurred to Merlin then: if his and Will’s presence in a time before their birth had such massive repercussions, why had Aithusa’s been overlooked? Judging by the fact that he’d never heard of a land where the sun was blotted out and it rained blood while the heavens and earth shook and stars fell in fiery balls of devastation, he had to assume that after he and Will were returned to their time the portents ended. But it didn’t make sense; if time magic was such a strict taboo that nature itself would punish the violator, then why was Aithusa’s decades long presence in the years before her birth ignored?

Vivienne had said something about it, if only he could remember what. Something about how as long as Aithusa slept it wouldn’t matter that she was there?

Then time magic couldn’t be a great unknown of random divine punishment. There were rules, and perhaps it was as simple as not disturbing what had already happened. Vortigern had been planning to kill Merlin, and even after he’d decided not to if Merlin and Will had stayed they would have spoken to people they otherwise couldn’t have had the slightest influence on, did things that originally hadn’t been done, and just in general made a mess out of what should have happened. Aithusa hadn’t done anything other than be present, in the same way as slowing down time to save Arthur hadn’t messed up anything that had already occurred. It seemed that small acts of time manipulation that didn’t directly harm the fabric of the past went unpunished.

In any case, it was not a theory Merlin was eager to test out, lest he be as wrong as Vortigern about where the line of what nature could and couldn’t tolerate was drawn. He didn’t want to be the next to rain down woe and doom on them all, all because he’d unwittingly strayed too far down the grey area on a scale of white to black.

 # \ # \ # \ #

The next morning, Merlin’s thoughts were only of hastily crammed in information about armour and a prayer of eternal gratitude to Gwen, whose last minute instructions were the only reason he was not forced to break down and ask the impatient knight he was suiting up where the hell each chunk of metal went.

“You do know the tournament starts _today_?” Arthur bit out, the pounding of the tournament drums making him antsy and thus even more rude and unpleasant than usual.

They were both far too aware of how fine they were cutting it for time, but only Merlin was impressed with the progress he had made so far. Arthur was suited up in most of his armour and the tournament hadn’t actually started yet, considering only a few hours ago he hadn’t known what any of the armour terminology in his book on tournament etiquette meant he thought he was doing pretty well.

Merlin mumbled a semantically polite, but tonally insolent, affirmation and, in what he considered a valiant attempt to put aside the many, _many_ differences and contentions between him and Arthur in favour of building a tolerable working environment between them, asked, “You nervous?”

If he was stuck with Arthur, he didn’t want every day to be like the first. Gaius insisted Arthur had a human heart under all that ego. He had to hope that Arthur had _some_ good qualities buried under all his not so good qualities, and this job get less horrible than it had so far been.

“I don’t get nervous,” Arthur said disdainfully.

That was such an obviously untrue piece of lordly posturing that Merlin, despite his resolve to get on better with the young noble, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to nettle him. “Really? I thought everybody got nervous.”

“Will you shut up!” Arthur’s overly loud yell confirmed any doubts that Merlin might have had over whether Arthur had emotions under all that brawn and arrogance.

Even though Arthur was still rude and looked down on him, shaking his head and brushing past him in annoyance when Merlin forgot to give him his sword, Merlin found him less dislikable now that he could tie some of Arthur’s more unpleasant traits to nervousness rather than straight-up unadulterated clotpole-ishness.

During the tournament, to Merlin’s surprise, he found himself cheering for Arthur. Maybe it was because he was the only person he knew competing, or maybe it was because if Arthur lost Merlin would be the one bearing the brunt of his resulting bad mood, but he was genuinely satisfied each time Arthur won. He would even say that his victories were impressive, but he felt that Arthur would know if he so much as thought that word in connection with him, so he wouldn’t.

Still, when Arthur’s matches were over and Merlin was removing his armour, the tournament looked more like a clash of metal upon metal now that he didn’t have a specific person to root for. He still watched as he struggled with the clasps on Arthur’s armour, trying to recall Gwen’s tips from hours before on where they all were and in what order to undo them, but he found himself thinking more along the lines of how Arthur would fare the next day against each contestant than over how exciting each match was on its own.

Valiant, one of the top contestants who even Merlin would tell was very handy with a blade, approached them after he too was finished his matches.

The older knight’s gait was more of a strut than a walk, as though winning on the first day guaranteed his success the following days. When he stopped to congratulate Arthur his deferential smile was lacking sincerity, and failed to mask the cockeyed grin hiding within it. Merlin was certain he was offering civilities to the prince only for appearance’s sake, and from the sour flat tone of Arthur’s one-word reply he had come to the same conclusion.

“Creep,” Merlin muttered after Valiant had walked out, flexing his shoulders in a move that would look ridiculous had it come from anyone not dressed in shiny chainmail.

This comment earned a laugh from Arthur and they exchanged amused looks. The easy atmosphere was quickly nipped in the bud, though, as Arthur’s laugh abruptly cut off.

His face turned away from Merlin’s as though embarrassed at having looked his way at all. “Uh,” Arthur began less than eloquently, sounding more like he was speaking to move past that almost-friendly moment than because he had been planning to say anything. “For tomorrow you need to repair my shield, wash my tunic, clean my boots, sharpen my sword, and polish my chainmail.”

Merlin, who wanted to study more of his new book and already had a list of daily duties he needed to attend to that didn’t include anything Arthur had just listed, was not pleased. He finished his staple chores and additional chores as quickly as he could, though there were some that he could not use as incantation practice while he studied.

By the next morning Merlin had done everything he was ordered to and was anticipating Arthur’s face when he saw it. While fetching the armour he could have sworn he heard Valiant’s shield hissing and saw its eyes glow red, but the knight himself had appeared and cut off further investigation. After leaving the room, Merlin was filled with doubt: it was early and he had stayed up late practicing spells, he might have just been dozing off.

He pushed aside bizarre encounters with shields by reminding himself of what was truly important: rubbing everything he got done in Arthur’s face. He spread out all the armour on the table in a nice looking presentation, if he said so himself. He enjoyed himself watching Arthur examine it all from multiple angles, looking incredulous but against his will impressed.

“You did all this by yourself?”

Grinning perhaps more than he should at having won at least one small victory over the prince, Merlin wished him good luck in the tournament. And he found, to his surprise, that he did so not just to not have to deal with Arthur in a glowering temper. Arthur didn’t respond, an improvement to over loading Merlin with chores to avoid interacting with his servant like a peer. And he glanced at Merlin before walking out with something that could have been appreciation, which Merlin decided to also count as a victory.

Maybe working for Arthur wouldn’t have to be horrible.

 # \ # \ # \ #

The sound of metal clattering on stone sounded beside him and two new sets of horrible hissing alerted him that the danger wasn’t over just because he had beheaded one of the snakes. Not wasting any time, Merlin grabbed the severed head and ran from Valiant’s guest room in full sprint, his heart pounding in his ears as he raced back to Gaius’ chambers. After Gaius took some of the venom to use in his antidote, Merlin brought the snake head straight up to Arthur’s chambers.

He opened the door without knocking, and Arthur looked up from where he was seated at his table eating his evening meal.

“Ah, Merlin, good timing. I need you to-”

“Valiant’s using magic to cheat,” Merlin cut him off from whatever chore he had been going to give him that was much less important than the life-and-death matter Arthur was unknowingly trapped in.

Arthur blinked at this out of nowhere assertion, furrowing his eyebrows as though he wasn’t sure whether Merlin was making a poor attempt at a joke. “ _What_?”

Merlin swallowed, and put the snake head on the table beside Arthur’s plate. Arthur gave it only a cursory glance before leveling a look at Merlin that questioned his sanity for carrying a severed serpent head around with him. Then he went back his supper, unconcerned.

It occurred to Merlin then that he’d have to give a fuller explanation if he wanted to be heeded. “Valiant’s shield is enchanted so that the painted snakes on it come alive. One of them bit Ewan, that’s how Valiant won that match.”

Arthur rolled his eyes upwards as though praying for patience in dealing with insane servants, and took a swing of whatever was in his goblet. “And you would know this… _how_?” he asked skeptically.

Merlin paused, wondering how best to answer that question without admitting to spying on nobles and breaking into their rooms with magic.

“Gaius diagnosed Ewan with a snake bite,” Merlin began, deciding to tell the truth but cut out large sections that Arthur didn’t need to know and would be better for Merlin if he didn’t. “And he needed to get venom from the snake that bit him to make an antidote. I went looking for the snake in Valiant’s room, since that’s who Ewan had been fighting, and the three snakes on his shield came alive and attacked me. I cut off the head of one-”

“ _You_?” Arthur interrupted skeptically, looking as though the idea of Merlin cutting off a magic snake’s head was more unbelievable than the idea of a magic snake living in Valiant’s shield had been. “ _You_ chopped its head off?”

Merlin forced himself to ignore the implied insult; this was more important than his contentions with Arthur. He tried convincing Arthur, throwing in all the arguments that he could think of, but Arthur didn’t look like he was taking anything Merlin said remotely seriously.

At length, unable to think of any more sound arguments, Merlin merely exclaimed, “Look at it!”

He grabbed the snake head off the table and held it out to Arthur. The prince rolled his eyes and looked, as if just to humour Merlin. Merlin pressed, finally having gotten Arthur’s attention no matter how shallow it was, “Have you ever seen any snakes like this in Camelot?”

Arthur’s mocking smile faded and he took the head, turning it over in his hands with a slight frown.

Merlin took a deep breath. “I know I'm just a servant and my word doesn't count for anything.” It was what Gaius had in essence told him, that Arthur’s father wouldn’t have given Merlin the time of day to even get as far in his account as Arthur had let him. Arthur looked up at Merlin, a complicated expression on his face. “But I wouldn't lie to you.”

A moment of silence stretched between them, as Arthur’s life hung on his trust in the lower classes. Finally, Arthur asked Merlin to swear he was telling the truth, and when Merlin did he proved himself a better man than his father with four deceptively simple words.

“Then I believe you.”

After that it was relatively quick and easy for the prince to summon the court for a trial. Merlin stood behind Arthur as the prince accused Valiant of cheating before his father, handing over the snake head as evidence. He wondered what was taking Gaius so long when he knew they needed Ewan as a witness, but when Gaius did come at last it was alone.

Merlin approached him to ask where Ewan was, and Gaius shattered Merlin’s illusions in the simplicity of doing the right thing in just two words said in a low whisper:

“Ewan died.”

 # \ # \ # \ #

Servants came and went up and down the great stone steps of the Main Square leading into the castle, only a few sparing so much as a glance at the boy sitting on the lowest steps to the side. Merlin’s knees were drawn midway up his chest with his elbows folded over on them, his eyes staring into the square blankly. The sound of people and horses passing by on the cobblestone echoed in a constant noise, and all he could think was that it must be great to be them.

They were mercifully unaware that the next day their prince would die an undeserved death and who knew what would happen to their kingdom afterwards, with no natural heir to the throne. Merlin envied their ignorance, because if he hadn’t known then he wouldn’t have tried to prevent it, and if he hadn’t tried to prevent it then he wouldn’t have landed himself in the trouble that Gaius had warned him he would.

Just that morning he’d thought things were looking up in the life of Merlin - that maybe Arthur could be sort of a decent person, for a prince, who in time he could get on with. Now Arthur hated his guts, he had no job, and he hadn’t even accomplished anything by it.

It stung more than it should have that Arthur had fired him, considering he hadn’t wanted the job in the first place and hadn’t enjoyed it that much while he had it. His first day had been downright horrible, his second day had been tolerable only because the tournament kept Arthur away from him for most of it, and his third day he’d been dismissed. Three days, he’d only lasted three days; that had to be some kind of record.

So it wasn’t as though he liked his job. It was that with those four nearly magic words from Arthur he’d effectively said that he didn’t need any further proof – Arthur hadn’t gone to see Ewan or talk to Gaius or any of the other things Merlin had suggested. Merlin had sworn he was telling the truth and Arthur had believed him just with that, it had been that simple and yet so exhilarating.

Then everything went to hell when Arthur was standing before the court with no witness looking like a petty child making allegations against a man just because he didn’t like him, with his father staring down at him in stern disappointment. Merlin’s word didn’t even factor into the king’s way of thinking; Arthur might as well have said that his horse saw the snakes come alive. The horse, at least, wouldn’t have nearly been arrested for speaking out in court and have to have _Valiant_ smooth talk his release - now that was beyond galling.

But what truly stung was the past tense in Arthur’s words afterwards: _I believed you, I trusted you._ Somehow everything that transpired in the courtroom became Merlin’s fault, even though he’d done nothing but tell the truth in an unappreciated effort to save Arthur’s life _again_ , and Merlin lost the job he’d never asked for as Arthur effectively threw him out of his life like rubbish that he didn’t even want to look at anymore.

Gwen approached him from across the square, voice soft with sympathy as she greeted him. As the maidservant of the king’s ward she must have heard about the mockable excuse for a trial. She sat down beside him in a gesture of comradery that Merlin appreciated; at least some people’s regard didn’t depend on the outcome of a trial.

“Is it true, what you said about Valiant using magic?” Gwen asked, getting right to the point.

Merlin nodded, not wanting to say anything more when words were not his friend today, but from Gwen’s sharp breath he could tell she believed him. Believed without having to have him swear an oath of truthfulness at all – and perhaps the comparison wasn’t fair, the lady’s maid not having been brought up to think all servants inherently unworthy of giving testimony, but Arthur hadn’t been fair to him so he was only returning the favour.

He was still looking out at nothing in the square, but from the corner of his eye he could see Gwen’s face scrunched up in worry as she faced him fully. “What are you going to do?”

Merlin turned his face halfway to hers. “Why should it be down to me to do something?”

“Because it is!” Gwen insisted as though surprised he’d think otherwise. She amended more uncertainly, “Isn’t it?”

When Merlin didn’t agree, she continued, “You have to show everyone you were right and they were wrong.”

Because trying to prove he was telling the truth had worked out for him so well a few hours ago. Facing her fully, he asked, “And how do I do that?”

She looked as helpless as he felt. “I don’t know.”

The obvious answer was that Merlin could use magic to save Arthur. But if he interfered with the match, he’d have to do it from somewhere he could see what was going on, from somewhere any one of the people in the large cheering crowd could see _him_.

Just three days ago he’d told Gaius he wouldn’t stick his neck out for Arthur unless Arthur smartened himself up. Arthur had almost gone there, but in the end Merlin was sitting rejected out on the steps instead of having this conversation up in the castle with the person who may not deserve to die, but also didn’t deserve to have Merlin die in his place.

Gwen couldn’t know about that, though – that Merlin probably could save Arthur, but it would be like juggling knives in the dark. Despite knowing she couldn’t be told, something in him needed to justify his inaction.

“I nearly got arrested for telling the truth, Gwen. Arthur’s sacked me for trying to save his ungrateful hide.” Gwen looked surprised at this, so apparently it wasn’t common knowledge yet.

She gave him a look of pity and understanding that he didn’t want, because he hadn’t wanted the job in the first place so there should be no reason losing it upset him. Not wanting to hear any condolences, Merlin steamrolled on, “The next time I try to help I might just make things worse.”

“But Arthur will die if you do nothing,” Gwen said gently. It was as though she didn’t think she needed to raise her voice or insist to stir him to action, merely remind him of this fact and the reminder itself would do the rest.

“No,” Merlin refuted. First Gaius, now Gwen? He didn’t know where this mentality that he was responsible for Arthur stemmed from, but he was quickly becoming annoyed at it. “Arthur will die if _he_ does nothing. I already told him about the snakes, all he has to do to be safe is withdraw. If his pride is more important to him than his life, then who am I to argue with that? I’m not his servant anymore; I have no duty to him! He’s a horrible person, I don’t even like him!”

“You saved his life once before, when all he’d done to you beforehand was insult and imprison you,” Gwen pointed out.

“That was… that was different,” Merlin responded weakly, having no good argument for it.

How could he explain why he’d saved Arthur’s life to her, when he couldn’t even explain it to himself? The chandelier had dropped on Mary Collins before he’d thought through what he was doing, and when the dagger was flying all brain power seemed to have rushed out of his ears leaving only instinct behind. She was wrong, he hadn’t saved Arthur once; he’d saved him twice within two minutes. The first time he could put down to panic and everyone being asleep, but the second time he’d saved him even though he’d just reflected on Arthur’s bullying tendencies and everyone had been waking up. It was a miracle no one had stood up and pointed at him, exposing him with a yell of _sorcerer!_ Even though three days had passed, Merlin still almost expected a figure to pull him into the shadows, whispering, _I saw what you did_.

“How?” Gwen questioned in non-understanding, looking at him as if to say that there was no difference. She put an arm on his shoulder. “Don’t give up - you’ll find a way.”

Guilt twisted like a knife through his heart at her faith in him. It still didn’t occur to her that he wouldn’t even look for one. “But why should I have to?” he asked, unable to let her walk away with some erroneous rose-tinted view of him where he tried everything within his power to help but was unsuccessful. “If our places were reversed, would Arthur risk scorn and punishment to help me?”

Considering Arthur had screamed about humiliation right before he fired Merlin, Merlin would wager all his possessions that Arthur would not.

“No,” Gwen admitted. She was looking at him so sadly, as though Merlin was falling short of some ideal she’d set for him and though she understood why, it was difficult to witness. “I guess I just thought that you were a better man than that.”

Those words pierced him. Because Merlin did want to be a better man than that. He didn’t want to be like a rat darting into a hole, saving his own skin and leaving everyone else to out to hang.

“I’ll go talk to Arthur again, try and make him see sense.” Merlin said, running a hand through his hair. It was all he was willing to commit to, but Gwen smiled beauteously at him.

Arthur had cooled down some during the time Merlin had spent on the steps, but he was still none too happy to see him or take his advice. Merlin tried to convince him to withdraw from the match in vain, his words feeling like they were falling on deaf ears.

Arthur’s reasoning surprised him when he began to yell, which Merlin was beginning to work out was Arthur’s default response to being upset in any way, “Don’t you understand? I can't withdraw! The people expect their prince to fight. How can I lead men into battle if they think I'm a coward?”

Merlin had expected some hogwash about honour or the knight’s code or some other kind of noble’s bogus morality. That would have been easy to argue against. Arthur’s acceptance of the odds he would be facing but stubbornness to live up to the expectations of the people he’d one day rule over was harder to overrule because Arthur _should_ care what his people and his men thought of him.

“It's my duty.” Arthur said of his rationale for why he had to fight, even though the odds were stacks heavily against him.

_Duty._

The last few days had taught Merlin that it was a servant’s duty to do all kinds of menial tasks for people who didn’t appreciate it. Ealdor had taught him it was a farmer’s duty to grow food for everyone. And now Arthur that it was a prince’s to take stupid risks so others would follow him.

What, then, was the duty of an unemployed secret sorcerer-in-training? If he were to ask Gwen and she miraculously accepted his magic, she’d probably tell him it was his job to help people. That was the reason Gaius had given him his book, and the reason he wanted to study magic in the first place. And if he wanted to use magic for something more than just himself, he was going to have to take risks sometime.

But was sometime now? It would be easier to do it when he was better trained and in less public setting. But something in him felt that if he stood back and did nothing now it would always follow him. He had the book and the magic which could save Arthur’s life, if not the training to use either well, and if he decided to let him die anyways then when would sometime be? At what point would he be prepared enough to give aid without it seeming like juggling knives, and what if he couldn’t recognize it when he reached it?

If he never gambled he would never lose, but neither could he ever win.

So looking into the blue eyes of a young man who knew he was going to die but wouldn’t abandon his duty, Merlin decided that before the death match the next day he’d better figure out how to juggle.

 # \ # \ # \ #

The banquet hall was decorated lavishly, and Arthur and Morgana were picturesque walking arm in arm down the entrance carpet. Merlin clapped along with everyone in the room as the tournament champion entered, but couldn’t resist leaning over to Gaius and whispering,

“See, I told you he gets all the girls and the glory.”

“And he owes it all to you.”

The evening before he’d hit inspiration after seeing a dog statue, though it wasn’t until long after the sun peaked over the dawn horizon that the former statue leapt at him barking. He’d arrived in time to enchant Valiant’s shield to come alive while Arthur was at a safe distance, exposing his treachery and stripping him of his greatest advantage in one fell swoop.

It would seem that no one thought anything of Valiant’s horrified _I didn’t summon you_ , being too busy lauding their prince with all the credit for defeating the dishonest knight. This slightly rankled Merlin’s pride, but mostly it was a cause for relief; if anyone knew of the part he played, his reward would be an escort to a rendez-vous with Lady Gallows.

The party broke up into small groups, and since Gwen and Gaius both turned to people Merlin didn’t know he decided to dive into the true main feature of the night: food. Standing at the long table with an already heaping plate, he was looking up and down its length trying to see if he’d missed anything when directly behind him he heard a lordly grousing of,

“Can you believe Morgana? She says she saved me. Like I needed any help.”

Merlin looked over his shoulder to where Arthur’s brain seemed to have caught up with his mouth, bringing the realization that he’d just stuck his foot into it. An awkward silence lay between them with the reminder that whether Lady Morgana tossing Arthur a sword was critical to his survival or not, he had needed Merlin’s help to avoid the snakes – though Arthur was out of the loop on just how much Merlin had done.

Arthur looked unbearably uncomfortable when he said, “I wanted to say I made a mistake. It was unfair to sack you.”

The words didn’t constitute an apology, but the tone was right and Merlin knew it was the best he was going to get. He got the feeling from Arthur’s discomfort that he didn’t even do quasi-apologies often, so Merlin was sort of flattered that he got one.

“No, don't worry about it,” he found himself saying, surprised at how he mostly forgave his ex-master for the impromptu dismissal. Even after the disastrous trial Arthur had still believed him about the snakes, after all, and he’d sort of apologized. “Buy me a drink and call it even.”

“Uh, I can’t exactly be seen buying drinks for my servant.”

Merlin could only stare at him, certain he’d heard wrong. “Your servant? You sacked me.”

Arthur replied with casual simplicity. “Now I’m rehiring you.”

A mishmash of opposing emotions brought on indecision of the finest caliber. Merlin was touched by the gesture and insulted Arthur hadn’t thought to ask if he even wanted to job back, he was relieved they had regained whatever flimsy amiability they’d built up and horrified at the thought of going back to that endless grunt work.

As much as being fired had stung, logically he could see it was for the best. Aside from the unpleasantness of the job itself, as Arthur’s servant he’d be closer to the Pendragons and higher profile than it was safe for a sorcerer to be. He’d already stepped into the limelight when he pulled Arthur out of the path of a dagger, but if he stepped away now he could still fade back into obscurity even if anonymity was lost to him, as with time and distance most of those who’d witnessed his actions would forget him. If he wandered the castle most of the day, every day, following in the prince’s footsteps then his face would stick in their memories, which couldn’t be a good thing.

Being Arthur’s servant might not be totally horrible all the time, but overall it was unpleasant, dangerous, and just because Merlin didn’t grit his teeth at the very sound of Arthur’s arrogant drawl anymore didn’t mean he wanted to live like his shadow.

“My chambers are –” Arthur went on, apparently taking Merlin’s speechlessness as confirmation he would leap at a chance to take back his three-day job.

“No thanks,” Merlin blurted.

It seemed to take a few seconds for Arthur to work out what he meant. He looked as though he thought he must have arrived at the wrong conclusion even though he couldn’t find a more fitting one. “What?”

Guilt poked Merlin like millions of red hot little needles. Considering Arthur was raised by the man who’d punish a commoner for speaking in court and still showed no signs of admitting he made a mistake despite nearly losing his son, he was being amazingly fair, thoughtful, and generous in giving Merlin his job back. It seemed cold-hearted to throw Arthur’s good deed back in his face, but the thought of attending to his stables day after day and running around after Arthur while hiding who he really was the whole time was enough motivation to steel Merlin’s resolve.

Trying to not offend Arthur while still holding his ground, Merlin uncomfortably shifted from foot to foot. “Look… we both know I didn’t actually want the job in the first place. So, um… yeah, I still don’t want it so… thanks, I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. You’ll have to find another servant.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When destiny comes calling, be sure to be polite when slamming the door in its face. *shakes head* Ah, poor, naive Merlin. We'll see how well this works out for him.
> 
> You didn't think Merlin was actually going to put up with Arthur without Kilgharrah feeding him a great spiel about Fate and Destiny, did you? Of course, poor Arthur's just been given the shock of his life! Yes, Arthur, unfortunately you cannot depend on Merlin believing one day you'll be this great glorious king who'll ushering in a Golden Age where magic is free because, well, he doesn't. You're going to have to give him some indication of that yourself, because a giant winged lizard isn't going to do it for you.
> 
> Originally this was two chapters, one for each episode. But I hated the first chapter so much it one of the reasons for my god-awful long hiatus - I cringed at the very thought of posting it. Recently I realized this was because it felt like basically an uninspired rehash of the show. So I cut out everything except the introduction of our main characters (and the tomato people, who are really minor but coming up next chapter so need some introduction here) and stuck the episodes together. I'd realized the story arc of 1x01 doesn't end until Merlin responds to his call, which is not when he pulls Arthur out of the way of a dagger in this version but when he tells Arthur 'thanks, but no thanks!' And finally I had something that I felt was at least stomachable, and could post so we could get to the chapters that I actually am happy with what I've written.
> 
> On a few side notes:
> 
> It is my head canon that Gwen is the distant descendant of a Roman soldier originally from North Africa who had some kind of a great and tragic tale as to how he went from Africa to Rome to the cold, remote British Isles. And even more tragically, he arrived just before the collapse of the Roman Empire, which stranded him there. At least he found love, as evidenced by Gwen's existence.
> 
> (Because when I see an actor in a racially incorrect setting my first thought isn't "these film makers are so progressive!" or "that's not historically accurate, how dare they!" but rather "must. create. backstory." Anything is explainable, if you're inventive enough.)
> 
> Merlin's spells are from an Old English online translator. They are most likely laughably ungrammatical, but I've forgotten what I even wanted them to mean so it doesn't bother me.
> 
> "Tomatl" actually means "tomatillo" and the real Nahuatl word for "tomato" is "xitomatl", but I decided I don't care. For the sake of easy linguistic transfer, fifteen hundred years ago everything was called "tomatl" at least in the region my tomato vendors are from, which was then corrupted to "tomato" on their introduction to Camelot.
> 
> "Timochipahua" is "you clean yourself" ... I hope. I don't exactly speak classical Nahuatl.
> 
> The room where Valiant’s trial takes place is called “the Council Chamber of Doom” in the wiki transcript. That made me laugh.


	2. 1x02 - Easy Solutions

"You know, when we first met I thought your life was perfect. Now I know better; being prince means you get punctured and slashed and almost killed, come back to be patched up, and then the very next day go right back to the same woods where you were punctured and slashed and almost killed and – big surprise - get punctured and slashed and almost killed again – probably getting your head bashed as that seems to happen about every other trip, and then you come back to –"

"Just give me the damn potion, Merlin," Arthur interrupted, holding out his unbandaged arm to take it. Behind him Bert, his new manservant, took a step backwards and Arthur realized he'd been expecting to be expected to take it, because who would expect the physician's ward to hand over a potion to royalty directly? He decided to blame this on Merlin; before the big eared idiot arrived in Camelot Arthur hadn't failed to meet the expectations on him so unthinkingly since he was a small child. "And then  _kindly_ shove off to do… whatever it is you do these days."

Merlin handed over the bottle of vile coloured liquid, appearing unfazed by Arthur's best unapproachable technique. "Just wondering if I'm the only one who's noticed a bit of a pattern going on here."

"Yes, it's called patrolling, it happens on a schedule."

"And maybe if it didn't there'd be less bandits and thugs and whoever else lying in wait for you every time you step into those outlaw-infested woods." Before Arthur could retort something about the idiot's intelligence – or lack therefore – and why he wasn't the one in charge of planning the kingdom's defence, Merlin continued on with, "Besides, you didn't get eight stitches in your arm because you were out patrolling, you were out stomping through the forest shooting at fluffy animals that - unlike everything else in those woods - never did you any harm."

"I don't expect  _you_  to understand the thrill of hunting."

"Well, that's good, because I don't. What's fun about killing poor defenceless cute little woodland creatures?"

"Merlin?"

"Shove off?"

"Very good, you're learning."

Merlin obediently turned to go, but after stepping out of Arthur's chambers he turned back again. With one hand on the doorknob, he called out one last comment, "I think kicking someone out is basically the same as admitting you have no other way of winning the argument."

Merlin closed the door so quickly that the water jug Arthur threw at him hit it and bounced backwards, rolling across his floor. Without having to be asked, Bert started forwards to pick it up. He replaced it in front of Arthur on the table, and then backed away to stand behind Arthur, wordlessly waiting to be called upon while remaining out of sight.

It shouldn't annoy him that Bert was so silently competent it was like he wasn't even there; that was supposed to be the hallmark of a good servant. Neither should it annoy him that Merlin could just walk away like that and Arthur wouldn't see him again until the next time he was injured – something that was becoming alarmingly frequent as of late. He'd taken to comparing his new servants with Merlin, which was ludicrous considering the boy had been completely inexperienced and only worked three days. Despite being infinitely better at servitude than Merlin was, there was something just… lacking in them.

His life was exactly the same as it had been before he'd met Merlin, yet somehow it felt lacking. Merlin's short visits to bring him potions from Gaius stood out more than any other daily events, like flecks of vivid red in a sea of grey. Without having the decency to do it consciously so Arthur could properly blame him for it, Merlin had shown Arthur a truth about his daily life he hadn't realised on his own: from the layout of his voluminous breakfast to only knowing how to identify three-quarters of the castle inhabitants by the tops of their heads because they were bowing whenever he was in the same room, his life was utterly predictable and he was bored of it.

Arthur was bored and, whatever else could be said about Merlin's short tenure as his servant, it had certainly been leagues away from approaching boring.

# \ # \ # \ #

"Thanks, Merlin, you can leave it on the table over there."

It was amazing to Merlin that two people with the same guardian could be so different. Perhaps he was biased because the Lady Morgana was his friend's beloved mistress and the daughter of a woman who'd given him tremendous help in the past, but he thought she was phenomenal, especially in her treatment of commoners.

She and Gwen were obviously friends more than they were mistress and servant; Gwen's light load of chores and considerable time off was proof enough. Every day when he went to deliver Morgana's sleeping draught he would see Gwen straightening up the room, arranging flowers, brushing Morgana's hair, carrying baskets of laundry, or fluffing Morgana's pillow; all work that was considerably less strenuous than anything he had done in his short tenure as a servant. He'd once made an idle comment to her about mucking out Morgana's horses and she'd given him a strange sort of look, replying that that's what stablehands were for as if she didn't know why he thought she did it. Merlin was unsure whether Arthur was unusually demanding of his servants or Morgana was unusually good to hers, though he suspected it was a bit of both, but he felt the difference between his and Gwen's treatment spoke volumes of the character of their masters (ex-master, in Merlin's case).

The first time Morgana spoke to him was only a few days after the tournament. She must have already spoken with Arthur, because she complimented him on having the good sense to refuse the position of Arthur's servant. She then went on to complain that for such a prestigious oft-sought after position it was a constant headache for her – the default overseer of the castle staff as there was no queen or princess – to have to constantly be rotating servants around to fill because either Arthur or his newest servant had pushed the other too far… though she laughingly told Merlin that in all her years at Camelot, he had come to his senses the fastest.

“Do you know what Arthur did to Bert this morning?” she posed to either him or Gwen, or perhaps both of them, from her reflection in her mirror. She was sitting at her vanity table as Gwen styled her hair, trying out different necklaces with her dress and not really looking at either Merlin or Gwen so it was difficult to tell who she was talking to.

“No,” Merlin said, uncomfortable conversing with an image. He hadn't seen a mirror before coming to Camelot, and it was very odd to see his own face without the distortion that occurred even in still water.

“ _Arthur_ , in his vast wisdom, decided to order Bert to make him breakfast – to make it himself, if you can imagine!” Morgana complained, as though this were unthinkable. Merlin stayed mum; that was definitely something Arthur had demanded of Merlin three out of his three day tenure as a servant. Merlin hadn’t thought much of it.

Gwen looked exasperated though. “I imagine Cook took that well,” she said, in a way that implied the direct opposite.

Morgana’s reflection rolled her eyes. “She apparently ranted to the royal chief of staff for twenty minutes about how she had enough to get on with without random personal servants messing about in her kitchen, which meant _I_ got an oh-so-polite request to please clarify with Prince Arthur who he should go to for what so his servants stop turning up in every which sector jamming things up trying to do tasks they have no training in. As if he ever listens! I’ve only explained the staff to him about a _thousand_ times and I bet he _still_ couldn’t tell the difference between a scullery maid and a chamber maid if his life depended on it!”

Gwen made an amused little noise, like of course only a perfect idiot wouldn’t immediately know which maid was which. Merlin, who would probably also die if placed in that unlikely scenario, decided to beat a hasty retreat. He quietly set down Morgana’s sleeping potion and slipped out to continue his rounds before either woman, occupied as they were with beautifying the lady, noticed.

After he finished all the castle deliveries he headed back up into Gaius' chambers, collecting the potions he needed to hand out in the lower town. There was surprisingly few that day: only Gelhert Seward's regular sedative and a couple of anti-cough lotions for a scattered number of individuals who weren't quite over the summer cold that had been swept through the lower town a few weeks before. No one was home at the Seward's house, so Merlin delivered the other potions and then tried again. When still no one answered, he stood on the doorstep undecided over whether to barge in uninvited or come back later. Remembering that Gelhert's son Tyr worked in the royal stables, Merlin decided he might as well hand it over to him on his way back to Gaius' chambers.

The sight and smell of the royal stables was much less depressing when he was just visiting them instead of having to muck them out. Tyr was hard at work rubbing down a large chestnut stallion, so absorbed in his work that he jumped a foot in the air when Merlin cleared his throat to get his attention.

Clutching the hand with the brush to his chest, he smiled crookedly in relief at Merlin's familiar face. "You startled me."

“Sorry.” Merlin held up the bottle of liquid pain relief in silent explanation for his visit. "I checked twice, but no one was at your house. Do you have somewhere to keep this until you go home?"

"Yeah, thanks. I can put it in my bag." Tyr held out his hand and Merlin passed him the bottle. Tyr put down the brush and stepped out of the stall, placing the bottle in a worn cloth sack. He turned back to Merlin and tilted his head slightly in puzzlement, confusion scrunching his honest face. "That's strange, though. My mother's out of town visiting her parents, but my father should be home now. Sometimes he ignores Gaius' advice and does chores around town, drawing water and the like, but normally it doesn't take him very long."

"Maybe he went to go visit a friend?" Merlin suggested, not knowing anything about Tyr's father beyond that he had a bad shoulder that hadn't healed properly after breaking, crippling him on one side and causing him chronic pain that he could only subdue with Gaius' help.

"Maybe," Tyr said noncommittally. He picked up the brush and went back to brushing the horse. "Sorry, Merlin, but this is Sir Leon's horse and he and I have a… complicated history. I'd rather get this done before he needs to get ready for patrol."

"Of course. Well, bye."

Merlin was walking across the Main Square on his way back to Gaius' chambers when he was stopped by a young voice calling out to him, tripping over the  _r_  of his name,

"Me ** _r_** lin!"

Turning towards the water pump, he could see a brightly dressed little girl scurrying forwards, waving to catch his attention. The tomato girl had a bucket of water in one hand and her usual basket in her other, though Merlin couldn't see any red tops poking out of it. He stopped to let her catch up, greeting her as best he could without knowing her name. He'd tried asking for it after she learned his from unknown sources, but apparently introductions were not within the small and select topics she could understand in Common – most likely because it was not pertinent to selling tomatoes.

He often saw her during his rounds in the lower town, out on the street somewhere calling out to passersby. She never did it with him, though; first impressions must die hard, because she seemed fonder of pretending to pelt him with the fruits from her basket than trying to convince him to buy them. Merlin suspected her constant work was all that kept her from joining the other children at the stocks, throwing the things for real. Merlin was apparently deemed her next best option for entertainment.

When she was near him she reached into her basket, pulling a large beige misshapen oval out of her basket. "We ha ** _v_** e a new item in, calle ** _d_**  a potato. It is  ** _v_** e ** _r_** y  ** _d_** elicious cooke ** _d_**  or  ** _b_** oile ** _d_** , on its own o ** _r_**  in soup," she enunciated carefully like she was reading from a memorized script.

She set her basket and water pail on the ground, pulling out one of her striped squares of cloth and wrapped it around the thing she'd called a potato. She tied a deft bow out of the cloth corners.

"He ** _r_** e. **_Fr_** ee.  ** _F_** o ** _r_**  you."

And with that, she drew back her arm and, with a devilish grin that alerted him to her intentions, threw the makeshift bag at him. Merlin's arms darted out to catch it before it hit him, and though partly successful he ended up fumbling the bag multiple times. The girl laughed, but in the end he somehow managed to trap it in a bizarre contortion of his elbow against his chest. With his free hand he picked the bag up by the knot at the top.

"Thanks," he said with a weary, lopsided grin. He was half grateful for the gift, while the other half wished she wasn't  _quite_  so taken with him.

He would swear her eyes were gleaming with future mischief as she sweetly replied, "You' ** _r_** e welcome." She picked up her basket of potatoes and bucket of water, swinging the former as a visual explanation. "I  ** _g_** o. New item, nee ** _d_** ** _s_** much selling."

"Oh, of course. Bye."

Merlin continued the rest of the way up to Gaius' chambers unimpeded, depositing the potato in the food cupboard and calling out for Gaius. When no one answered, Merlin went upstairs and pulled his book out of its now heavily enchanted hiding place, casting a spell to jam the door since it had no physical lock on it. He flipped it open to his latest project, rereading the short paragraph and studying the simplified diagram again with great frustration.

Instantaneous transportation magic, his spellbook cautioned, was extremely dangerous. There was a very real risk of missing one's intended destination and ending up somewhere much worse; for example, accidentally drowning oneself by ending up in the middle of the sea instead of in the middle of one's seaside home. Getting the destination right, however, was not much less risky. If there were any objects or people whatsoever where one intended to transport to then they would impale one's body, which depending on the injury may result in death. The only way to be certain one arrived safely was to mark the intended destination with a locus circle, which would ground one to the destination preventing arrival at erroneous locations and clear the surrounding area to eliminate all obstacles.

And the next sentence, at the bottom of the paragraph, was the very last sentence in the section and made Merlin want to scream in frustration:  _Please reference "The Three Hundred and Thirty-Three Trials of Transportation" and related works for more details._

And no matter how he scrutinised the bare-bones diagram of what a locus circle looked like and tried to recall what Mary Collins had muttered right before a violent wind carried her away, he was no closer to being able to replicate her spell than he had been the day he arrived.

From downstairs he heard the door opening, and Merlin quickly re-hid his book and unjammed the door. Getting up to open it, he called, "Gaius?"

"In here," his guardian called back from the main floor. Peeking down, Merlin could see him poking around with something on his workbench and, glancing both ways, that he was alone.

Merlin retrieved his book and came down the stairs three at a time. Gaius looked up as he arrived with a final great thud on the landing. He raised his eyebrow at the spellbook and asked dryly as though he already knew the answer, "Did you read that volume on human anatomy I set for you?"

After Merlin was out of a job, Gaius seemed to decide it would be best to keep him close by and thus out of trouble, or perhaps he simply couldn't find any work for Merlin now that he had the notoriety of being fired by the prince attached to his name. He’d decided if Merlin couldn't work, he could learn instead. In either case, Merlin, in addition to taking up most of Gaius' unskillful chores, was each day set an enormous amount of reading on the physician's craft or the scientific process in general. Merlin tried to read through each one, he really did, but they were unbelievably dry - he'd woken up drooling on the big dusty tomes more than once.

So most days Gaius came home to find Merlin had only gotten through half of what he was supposed to and was instead studying out of the vastly more interesting and applicable spellbook.

"Er, no, but I'll get to it later." It was amazing how much scepticism Gaius could convey with just a look. "I wanted to ask you about locus circles."

Gaius stiffened at the last two words, and turned away from whatever he had been doing to fully face Merlin. "Locus circles are one of the most complex and finicky pieces of magic; one smudged segment of a line will render the entire thing useless, so they require at minimum daily maintenance to be safe to use. They're also quite large and distinct looking, so there's no possible way you could make one within ten leagues of the city without someone stumbling across it and reporting it to the king. And if you made one farther away then you wouldn't be able to do the upkeep on it."

"Do you know how to make them, then?" Merlin asked hopefully. Even if they were dangerous to use when not well maintained, if it was a choice between the gallows and taking his chances that nothing happened to his locus circle since he last checked it, Merlin knew he'd what he’d choose in a heartbeat.

Gaius gave him a stern look, apparently not seeing how life-saving this spell could be. "I did, once, but it's been so long that I don't remember now."

Merlin must not have looked sufficiently dissuaded, because Gaius gave a sigh. "When I was around your age, long before magic was banned, there was a sorcerer living across the street from where I was studying. His name was Tarius, and he was a brilliant but lazy, careless man. One day he journeyed to his hometown, and after staying with his mother for the night he decided to save himself a seven hour walk by using magic to transport home, even though his locus circle hadn't had anyone to maintain it in his absence. No one ever saw him again, though his grown children moved back into his house, fixed the scuffed segment of the locus, and maintained it until the day they died in the hope that one day he'd find a way home. That was what happened after only neglecting the upkeep for one day; I guarantee you wouldn't be able to properly keep up a secret get-away locus or whatever you're planning without your daily trips to and from the middle of nowhere raising suspicions."

Disappointment was like a cold bucket of water to the face. It seemed like the spells that would be most useful to learn all had some great drawback. Time magic was a shot in the dark over the consequences, transportation magic required advanced planning and a huge time and space investment that Merlin couldn't afford, and healing spells were either so specialized they would only work for the exact type of injury they were designed for or so generalized that they weren't good for much more than flesh wounds.

They were interrupted by a knock came at the door just then, and someone called out in a panic, "Gaius? Gelhert Seward's is lying dead in the Lower Town. There's something wrong with his skin, I think it's some new kind of plague!"

# \ # \ # \ #

"I'm sorry, Gwen."

Words seemed to fail Gwen. She took a step backwards, then turned on heel and fled, her cheeks tear-streaked and her entire face twisted in anguish. Merlin watched the billowing of her red cloak as she raced from the room without the help she'd run to them for.

He approached Gaius, who looked sombre at having had to give dreadful news to someone he knew well. "There must be something we can do."

Gelhert Seward had only been the first in a long line of victims, laid in shrouded rows out in the Main Square each night as the death toll continued to rise. Gaius was hard at work examining the bodies while Merlin hovered nearly uselessly behind him only able to help by holding test tubes, fetching things, and picking herbs. He'd barely gotten the suggestion of a magical cure past his lips before Gaius shot it down, grabbing Merlin by the arm and pulling him away from a still breathing plague victim.

The plague was magical in nature, and Uther's paranoia seemed to rise with each white silhouetted corpse that appeared in the Square. Arthur was leading hunts through the city for the sorcerer responsible and Merlin had already nearly been caught when his room was searched, having carelessly thrown the spellbook in from the door before hurrying back down the steps to accompany Gaius in retrieving Gelhert Seward's corpse. So it wasn't as if Merlin didn't understand Gaius' wariness about practicing magic now, of all times...

Gaius took the bucket of water from Merlin and turned away, carrying it towards his work bench. "Let's hope that this can provide some answers."

Only a few minutes earlier the appearance of the body of a dead female courtier after the Lower Town had been cordoned off eliminated the possibility that the plague was spread through contact, the air, or the food supply, leaving one possibility: the water supply. Merlin had run out to fetch a sample from the well, elated that there was finally a show of progress from doing things Gaius' way, only to have the thrilling moment crash down when Gwen had run past him in tears.

"But that'll be too late for Gwen's father."

Gwen had been out of breath when she arrived in Gaius' chambers, but it was the torturing of her heart, not her body, that constricted her voice when she begged Gaius to help her dying father only to be told he had no cure. Gwen's father was her only family, and Merlin could physically feel his friend's pain; he couldn't imagine what he'd do if it was his mother who was dying of an incurable plague. Even far away in Ealdor, she was the person he held dearest in the world – his one unshakable bond that even hundreds of leagues and the weeks since he'd last seen her could not break or fray. For the years they'd lived in their small cottage with just the two of them she'd been his constant source of companionship, guidance, laughter, and comfort, and it was easy to see that Tom was to Gwen as Hunith was to Merlin.

"I fear you're right," Gaius said in a heavy voice. Even as he said this, he began the long, slow, scientific process of testing the water sample. Merlin didn't doubt Gaius would get his results and find a way to cure the plague, but in the meantime people were dying. His first friend in Camelot's father was dying while they followed the safe, time-consuming non-magical route that would be too late to save all the people who would be set out in the Main Square before the great bell signalling the curfew.

Merlin was sick of waiting helplessly for science to bring the aid Camelot so desperately needed.

He slipped up to his room, and pulled his book out from its enchanted hiding place. He flipped through to the section on healing spells, and started reading avidly, trying to find one that would be of use. His conscience twinged at disobeying Gaius, but that was nothing compared to the crushing guilt at just the thought of allowing Gwen's father to die. He didn't know how he would ever be able to face Gwen again if he stood by and did nothing.

It took him several hours, but he narrowed down his options to three different antidotes for magical poisons. As the plague was spread by ingesting water, it probably acted similar to a toxin, Merlin theorised. He picked the one that had less awful complications if he made a mistake in preparing it or his theory was wrong. It was a scented poultice that cleansed the body of magic-based impurities upon inhalation. The ingredients it called for were all herbs that could be found in Gaius' store cupboard, and it only took half an hour to make.

Merlin waited until it was dark and Gwen would be asleep before he snuck through the lower town, distracting the patrolling guards easily enough. Feeling like a thief as he crept into a house at night, Merlin silently and cautiously approached Tom's bed, careful to slide the poultice under his pillow in a smooth, slow motion so as not to wake him.

Quiet as he dared without risking garbling the spell, Merlin whispered, "þu fornimst adl fram guman."

The effect was immediate: a cloud of glowing gold wafted from under the pillow. Tom inhaled it like a drowning man gasping for air and the colour returned to his skin. Merlin slipped out of Gwen's house, but lingered a moment to watch through the window. Tom stirred, and reached down to lay his hand on his daughter's head. That Gwen was woken by this light touch spoke of her distress, and Merlin smiled at her joy at her father’s recovery.

Merlin slept better than he had since the first plague victim was found. In the morning, he went about his daily tasks for Gaius. When he dropped off Morgana's sleeping draught, Gwen was positively radiant.

As they always seemed to do for him, though, the good turn of events didn't last long.

Not twenty minutes later, he stopped short in horror. There were two armed guards flanking Gwen on either side, forcibly dragging her along by the elbows while she protested her innocence, looking between her unsympathetic escorts in wild terror. Seeing Merlin, she called out to him as she was shunted past him by her red and silver clad captors.

Long after she was dragged away, Gwen's pleas for help echoed in Merlin's ears.

# \ # \ # \ #

Most of the time, it was a trial for Arthur to keep his mind from wandering during sessions of his father's council. The issues brought forward on any given day tended to range in importance from sticky spots in the accommodation preparations for the next tournament, to the cost of building embankments around the settled portions of the River of Ascetir, to which day to hold the annual garland competition on. So Arthur thought his difficulties in focusing were well understandable. But then there were days when the matter of discussion grabbed his full attention, and on those days Arthur would wish that his biggest problem was sitting up straight and keeping his eyes unglazed.

Currently, it was one of those days. With his father discussing burning a maidservant and how to stop the incurable plague with his advisors, Arthur's attention wasn't in any danger of fleeing the room for the training grounds. But just when he thought matters couldn't get any more dire, they proceeded to do so as if to mock his expectations.

The doors slammed open, and his one-time manservant burst in unannounced and uninvited. Before Arthur had time to marvel at what an idiotic breach of protocol this was, the boy was shouting,

"It was me! It was me who used magic to cure Gwen's father!" When the room as a whole failed to react to these words, questioning if they'd truly heard that right, Merlin looked the king directly in the eyes as he damned himself further by repeating, "Gwen’s not the sorcerer, I am!"

If Merlin hadn't looked so resolute Arthur would have thought he'd spent too long in the tavern, because there was no other explanation he could think of for why anyone would say something so idiotic. Not even sorcerers would be insane enough to confess this in the heart of Camelot before the king and all his guards. This was clearly an attempt to save Morgana’s maid, which just went to show that Merlin was only displaying the foolhardy courage he'd shown when they first met; if Merlin had truly been a practitioner of the dark arts he wouldn't have cared whether the woman lived or died, certainly not to the extent of volunteering to take her place. The only thing Merlin was guilty of was stupidity and suicidal tendencies.

Gaius must have thought so too, because he tried to brush it all aside only to be cut short by Merlin himself. The order for Merlin's arrest broke Arthur out of the disbelieving stupor Merlin's mad declaration had brought on him.

"Father, I can't allow this, this is madness!" Arthur was moving towards Merlin, who was being grabbed by the guards even as he spoke, before he was aware of what he was doing. Once he realized he stopped, settling for gesturing to Merlin as he turned back to his father. "There's no way  _Mer_ _lin_ is a sorcerer!"

"He admitted it," his father said, a precise and damning truth.

No matter what good deeds Merlin had done in the past – saving Arthur's life when that witch tried to kill him, preventing him from entering the fight with Valiant unsuspecting of his treachery – they would do nothing to persuade his father, who asked the question that Arthur had no real answer for:  _why should he fabricate such a story?_

"Because…"

Why indeed?

He was obviously trying to save Morgana’s maid, but why at the cost of his own life? If anyone should care about her enough to try this stunt it should be either her father or Morgana. Merlin hadn't been in Camelot for very long, he couldn't possibly be closer to her than either of them.

Well, if he wasn't going to guess the motivation for Merlin's stupidity any time soon, he'd just have to make one up. Gaius, seated across from where Arthur was standing now, caught his eye and he got an idea. "…it's as Gaius said. He's got a  _grave_ … mental disease."

His father leaned forwards, his interest peaked, and Arthur knew his tactics were working. It was just a shame he didn't know any grave mental diseases. Throwing medical causes aside, Arthur wracked his brains for something that his father could accredit for Merlin's actions, and he hit upon his answer right away.

"He's in love." While Arthur was mentally applauding his own brilliance, Merlin was unhelpfully being the most surprised person in the room at hearing this. To clear any vagueness away and override Merlin’s objections, Arthur loudly specified, "With Gwen."

Merlin's spluttered out protestations threatened Arthur's valiant efforts to clear his name, and Arthur had to resist the urge to smack him across the head. Instead he put an arm around Merlin's shoulder in a display of friendliness, half for the benefit of his father and half as a warning to Merlin to shut up, inwardly swearing he'd find a way of making the idiot pay for putting him in this position later. "It's all right. You can admit it."

Arthur could sense from the mood in the council room just then that he'd won, and anything Merlin said in further protestation would be taken as boyish embarrassment at admitting his crush. When Uther made a joke at Merlin's expense and ordered his release Arthur relinquished his cautionary hold on him with gratitude.

The look Merlin gave him before turning away was loaded with a complex mash of emotions that Arthur didn't know how to untangle. The only thing he could tell was that Merlin was not in the least thankful for his intervention, the ungrateful little beanpole.

# \ # \ # \ #

With a deeply entrenched feeling of powerlessness, Merlin flipped through the thick yellow parchment of his spellbook, opening the page to combat magic. He hadn't been able to find anything specific on Afancs in the other sections, so he would have to hope one of the spells in the combat section would be marked  _use to defeat monsters created by powerful sorcerers_. Downstairs Gaius was poring over his many books trying to find the monster's weakness, and Merlin couldn't help but wish that he had a secondary source to consult, someone who was even more knowledgeable than Gaius in matters of magic who could offer him help when Gaius was just as uninformed as he about how to proceed.

After Arthur had oh-so-thoughtfully ruined Merlin's first attempt to take responsibility for the plight he'd caused Gwen, he went with Gaius to examine the underground water reservoir in the hope that something there would be useful to prove his friend innocent. Although they didn't find a calling card left from the sorcerer who'd started everything, they found the source of the disease: a monster called an Afanc contaminating the water supply at its heart.

Unfortunately, knowing what the heart of the problem was and finding a solution were two separate matters. Merlin had visited the dungeons for a second time, and sworn to Gwen once again that he'd get her out. The first time he'd gone, just before his first attempt at freeing her, she'd been trying so desperately to be strong in the face of death, voicing her concerns for the people she was leaving behind rather than for herself, but although her courageous kindness was heartbreaking to witness the second visit was worse.

She'd been lying unresponsive on the floor with her back to the iron gated cell door. At first glance it looked as though she was sleeping, but the rhythm of her breathing was wrong for it. Despite this, she didn't respond to any of Merlin's promises to free her, as though she'd already given up all hope. Merlin couldn't even offer anything more reassuring than his word she would be, because unlike the time before he had no solid plan to get her out. With nowhere else to turn he'd returned to Gaius' chambers and pulled out his spellbook, hoping to stumble across the answer sooner rather than later, while wishing desperately he had some quicker way of finding the monster's weak point.

Merlin had scarcely gone through three pages when a knock came at the door downstairs, and he had to stash his book away in case it was another raid sent from Uther. He got off his bed and pressed his ears against his door.

" _G_ aius, I nee _d_  to speak wi _th_  you. In p _r_ i _v_ ate." The visitor had the low quivery voice of an old man and his words carried a distinct inflection, fainter than the tomato girl's accent but reminiscent of it. Merlin remembered Gaius saying that the tomato girl lived with her grandfather, who'd come to Camelot thirty years ago. He'd never met the man, but he was willing to bet that was who was downstairs.

"Of course, Tenoch, why don't you step inside?"

There was the sound of the door closing, and then the visitor was speaking again. "It's a _b_ out my  _gr_ an _dd_ aughter, Miyahuatl." He was silent for a minute, as though the man was hesitating about what to say, or how to say it. "I nee _d_  whate _v_ e _r_  it wa _s_   _th_ at you ga _v_ e  _th_ e  _b_ lacksmi _th_."

"I'm afraid I didn't give Tom anything, I don't know anything about how he got better." Merlin personally was amazed at how even Gaius' voice was, but Tenoch must not have been because he scoffed,

"Some people' _s_  memo _r_ ie _s_  may  _b_ e short,  _b_ ut mine goe _s_   _b_ ack lon _g_ er  _th_ an twenty year _s_. Let us stop  _th_ is p _r_ etence; I know and you know  _th_ at  _b_ e _f_ ore  _th_ e Pur _g_ e your  _r_ eme _d_ ie _s_  were more, shall we say ' _v_ a _r_ ie _d_ ',  _th_ an  _th_ ey are now."

"Well, if you're memory is that good," Gaius' voice was sharp and pointed, as if trying to cut off this direction of conversation as quickly as he could. "Then you must remember that I swore a solemn oath before the entire court to never practice sorcery again."

"Yes, and I'm sure  _th_ e  _b_ lacksmi _th_ 's  _d_ aughter _g_ ot a ma _g_ ical cure  _fr_ om some o _th_ er  _f_ ormer sorcerer who li _v_ e _s_  here whom she wa _s_  seen  _v_ i _s_ iting yester _d_ ay. Who in  _th_ is city o _th_ er  _th_ an you coul _d_  ha _v_ e ma _d_ e  _th_ at poultice?"

"I have no idea, but I'm afraid I'm telling the truth when I say that I have no cure. However, I have found the cause of the contamination and am looking for a way to eliminate it right now."

" _Th_ at won't help Miya." Tenoch bit out in anger. After a long silence, he began again, soft and pleading. "Plea _s_ e,  _G_ aius, she' _s_  only ten year _s_  ol _d_. It's my  _f_ ault she' _s_  sick; I  _d_ i _d_ n't warn her a _b_ out  _th_ e water, an _d_  she  _d_ oe _s_ n't speak Common well – she woul _d_ n't ha _v_ e un _d_ erstoo _d_   _th_ e  _g_ ene _r_ al announcement. She  _d_ i _d_ n't know not to  _g_ et _th_ e water  _fr_ om  _th_ e pump."

That last sentence nagged at the more acute portion of Merlin's brain. After Uther issued a proclamation about how the disease was spread the courtiers drew their daily supply from the emergency reserves, but the people in the lower town didn't have access to a source of water other than the pump. Most were going without water for as long as possible; those who could afford it drank alcohol instead, and the rest just hoped that Gaius would find a cure before they had to give in or die of thirst. But it sounded as though Tenoch thought the tomato girl could have gotten her water from another supply if only she'd known she should.

Tenoch continued on pleading as though he hadn't said anything strange. "I ma _d_ e sure no one saw her, no one know _s_  she' _s_  sick – I' _v_ e  _b_ een telling people she went home to  _v_ i _s_ it her mo _th_ er. An _d_  e _v_ en i _f_   _th_ e king  _f_ in _ds_  out… he  _d_ i _d_ n't punish  _th_ e  _b_ lacksmi _th_ , only hi _s_   _d_ aughter. I'm ol _d_ ; I' _d_   _g_ la _d_ ly take my  _gr_ an _dd_ aughter' _s_  place."

"I'm sorry, but I truly had nothing to do with Tom's recovery. I can't help you."

There was a long moment of silence, as if the two downstairs were having a silent battle of wills, until Tenoch broke it with a bitter, "Can't? Or won't?"

The sound of the door slamming reverberated up to Merlin's room, alerting him that it was safe to take out his book again. The trouble was he didn't know which page he should turn to in it: the one with the cure or the one on combat magic.

Gwen's execution loomed on the horizon, at dawn the very next day. It was all his fault she'd been accused of witchcraft and he had no idea how to defeat the monster that would clear her name.

On the other hand, there were people dying in of the plague in the lower town; those who'd contracted the illness before the proclamation and – if he couldn't defeat the monster soon – then those who'd give in to dehydration and drink it anyway. He couldn't help them all – most of the plague victims he only found out about after they were carried out of their homes to the Main Square by family members. The others were kinless street folk, who if they were found cured would cause untold havoc, there being no convenient housemate to blame. Given Uther's paranoia and reaction to Tom's healing, Merlin wouldn't put it past him to execute anyone who so much as walked past them in the street. For the nameless, faceless general population it was easy to rationalize his inaction, with Gwen being a sterling example of what would happen if he acted rashly.

But with the tomato girl – Miya, he amended mentally, finding it bitter that he only now had a name to attach to her young face – it was much harder because she was someone he knew.

It had only taken him half an hour to painstakingly follow the instructions to make the cure for Gwen's father, and he would wager he could do it in half that time having already made it once. A quarter of an hour would be all it took to save the little girl's life, but it wasn't that simple. How could he know for sure that Tenoch was right when he said no one had seen her sick, and even if he did with all the raids going on how could he know that no one would find the poultice under her pillow during the time the spell needed to take effect? It wasn't just his life he'd be risking, but the old man's as well, and possibly the girl he meant to save. And Gaius'; Tenoch had already connected Gaius with the magical cures, what if others came to that conclusion and what he'd done to Gwen happened to Gaius as well? He couldn't predict who Uther would name guilty by association when the king was growing more and more paranoid the longer the plague lasted. Gaius had taken Merlin in without reservation, despite the penalty for harbouring a sorcerer, and offered him guidance that no one else could. He had quickly become like a father to Merlin; Merlin didn't think he could bear it if anything happened to him.

Merlin would be risking a lot to help one little girl he hadn't even known the name of until just a few minutes ago.

 _Can't, or won't_ , Tenoch's parting resounded in his head, an accusation that hadn't been directed at him. But it should have been; he was the one Tenoch was looking for, not Gaius who had been unjustly blamed, so he was the one who should have had to face the desperate grandfather. If he had walked downstairs and admitted it, the old man would have looked him in the eye when he said those words, and what would Merlin have responded with? He could cure the girl, there was no question of that, but would he? Should he?

Gwen's face as she frantically called out for help flashed through his mind twice: once when she was begging Gaius for a cure, once when she was begging Merlin to stop her from being taken her away. It physically hurt him to think of her when with the sentence hanging in the air like the executioner's torch that was just waiting for Uther's signal to light her pyre, but he forced himself to. If he hadn't cured her father she would be safe, but Tom would be dead. And if it had been the other way around, if Gwen had been the one dying and Tom the one arrested, Merlin knew that though he’d regret accidentally implicating someone in his crime, he’d regret it less than letting a friend die.

Merlin let out a deep breath and pulled open his door. Slipping downstairs past where Gaius was avidly reading through thick volumes, he grabbed some basic herbs from the supply cupboard and a small perfuming bag. He crept back up to his room and down again scarcely a quarter hour later, a shoulder bag clutched guiltily to his side. His steps as he snuck out were between a walk and a jog, a pace that was too quick while trying not to be.

He passed numerous guards on his way to the lower town, his muscles tensing and heart racing each time. He wasn't stopped, but the strap of his bag burned against his shoulder and he couldn't imagine how they didn't see him and just know what he was carrying barely concealed within an ordinary bag.

He came to a small house backing onto a very distinct vegetable stand and stole around back, feeling again like a thief. The door mercifully didn't creak as it opened, and Merlin slipped inside, glancing up and down the street to be sure that no one was looking out any windows or walking by who'd see him enter.

The house was so cluttered he was having difficulties seeing where the sleeping room was. Tenoch's house seemed to double as his storeroom, for the entire thing with filled with assorted barrels of fruits and vegetables. Overhead shelves filled with small baskets lining all the walls, and in one corner under a great crack in the wall sat a brightly painted stool with a wobbly  _M_  marked on the top. The shelves must have been too high for Miya to reach on her own, and Merlin was stuck anew how small she was.

He cast about until he found the screen dividing a side room from the main one. After approaching it, he peered over and could see an old man stroking the pale, blue veined face of a girl who if he didn't know was the tomato girl he wouldn't have recognized. With two whispered Old words the man slumped over in deep sleep, and Merlin stepped out from behind the screen, reaching into his bag for the scented magical poultice.

The effects were just as instantaneous as they were with Tom, and Merlin was quick to grab the poultice out from under her pillow after she'd breathed in the cure. His book said to leave it there for at least six hours for full effect, but he didn't dare risk that again. The sickness was gone; it was up to her body now to restore itself to peak health.

Merlin quickly made his way out of the room as the girl's eyelids began to flutter open, but he paused in the main room. If he left things the way they were, then Tenoch would assume Gaius had cured Miya. The tongue lashing Merlin would get from Gaius for curing another person after the last disaster aside, that could only be dangerous for Gaius in the future, if Tenoch let something slip to the wrong person.

Merlin grabbed a scrap piece of parchment from his bag, found a quill and ink bottle on one of the shelves, and with his left hand wrote out a shaky, but sort of legible note.

_I was just passing by and thought you could use some aid. For all our sakes, it's better to pretend this never happened._

He should sign it, so they knew for sure it didn't come from Gaius, but he could hardly use his own name. The last time he'd been put on the spot for a fake name he'd gone with Myrddin, but that wouldn't take a genius to trace back to him. Inspiration hit, though, as he remembered Vortigern and Vivienne calling him something else. He couldn't quite remember what it was, so he just made his signature into one shakily flourished,

_E._

He placed the note atop their table, and made his way home. There, he pulled out the spellbook and continued reading on combat magic, exactly as he'd been doing before the interruption just over an hour before.

He wondered at himself for taking the time to save Miya when he only had until sunrise the next day to save Gwen, but perhaps that distraction and reorientation of his thoughts was just what he’d needed. Recently, living in such close quarters with Gaius as his only confidant and advisor, without realizing it he'd been sucked into his way of thinking. There was no doubt to Merlin that Gaius was a good and wise man, and that he'd survived through circumstances that would have been the death of anyone else.

But living in Camelot through the Purge as an ex-sorcerer, impressive as it was, might have taught Gaius to be  _too_  careful, if such a thing existed. Gaius warned him and warned him against letting anyone find out about him, and Merlin's common sense and his mother's teachings fell in line with that way of thinking so he hadn't questioned it. But if, in the end, he had to flee Camelot, then so what?  He'd only been here just over a month and most of the magic he was learning was straight out of a book. There were people he'd miss if he left, but there were people in Ealdor he missed now. Somehow, in the month he'd been here he'd forgotten that the only reason he'd come to Camelot was to learn magic; if he took his book with him then that was all he needed to keep up his studies, it didn't have to be under Uther's nose.

If he couldn't find a monster-defeating spell before sunrise it would not be the end of the world. He had magic and he'd broken out of those dungeons when he was  _four_ , he could certainly get Gwen out if it came to it. They might not be able to get past the guards or out of the country safely, and he didn't know what they'd do next if they did, but he'd made her a promise. He intended to keep it, or die trying.

It would be best, for them both as well as the whole city, if instead Merlin could find a way before sunrise to kill the Afanc. But it was heartening to know that Uther was not the only one with massive power at his fingertips, and that if the best path forward closed then there were other paths he could take.

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Morgana took a step backwards, shaking her head in a wordless refusal to believe what she'd been told. The guard who'd given her the unwelcome tidings reached out to her, presumably to comfort her, but she knocked the hand away. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear his words over the roar of her thoughts. She turned on heel and fled, without any destination in mind, for no reason other than that she couldn't bear to be in the presence of one of Uther's men.

The cold stone hallways she ran through seemed mocking in their white splendor. They should be red; red for the fire that would be lit that night, red for the blood spilled by those living within these walls. She didn't know who to turn to: Gwen was imprisoned, Uther wouldn't listen, and Arthur's pitifully weak attempts to help had only made things worse. Gwen's new friend Merlin also hadn't managed to make anything better, though he'd done a heaping share more than anyone else - to her shame, herself included - had to free Gwen. Morgana hadn't realized her list of friends was so short until now, when she needed someone to call on for aid and there was no one.

With no one else to turn to, she strode into the physician's chambers, hoping the knowledgeable old man who helped her with her nightmares might have some solutions to her more corporeal problems.

"They're bringing forward the execution. We have to prove Gwen's innocence."

From up the small flight of stairs at the back of the room she heard a door open, and Merlin hurried down them two at a time. Gaius looked up from a thick volume he was reading through, and wearily said without much hope,

"We're trying."

That wasn't good enough for Morgana, but it was a sight more than what anyone else was doing. "Please, just tell me what I can do to help."

To her surprise it was Merlin who responded. "There's a monster, an Afanc, in the water supply. That's what's causing the plague."

Hope sprung through her, and the answer was so obvious to her she couldn't believe neither Gaius nor Merlin had done it already. "Well, we must tell Uther."

"The Afanc's a creature forged by magic." Gaius said, shattering her hopes before they'd truly taken root. "Telling Uther wouldn't save Gwen. He'd just blame her for conjuring it."

Merlin stepped forward, looking searchingly at Morgana. It struck her then that she wasn't the only one who'd been desperate for someone to come alongside and help save a friend. "We need to destroy it. Then the plague will stop and Uther may see sense. Only… we don't know how."

"Does that matter?!" Morgana cried, unable to believe her ears. They'd figured out so much, but were now just standing at the edge of a crevice wondering how to get to the other side. To her, the answer was simple: they had to take a leap, and trust they'd make it. "Gwen's execution's _tonight_ ; we don't time to be flipping through books hoping for a miracle solution! We have swords, we have crossbows, do we not?! If those don't work, then we have maces, axes, lances, torches, tar and oil, _catapults_! Even if it's conjured by magic, it's a living and breathing beast; if it's alive, then we can kill it! We have to at least try!"

"You're right," Merlin said quietly. Gaius let out a cry of admonishment, protesting that they didn't know the monster's weakness. Merlin turned to Gaius, only one side of his face now visible to Morgana. As he semmed to be choosing his words specifically to exclude her from the conversation. "Remember what you told me about the responsibilities of being… your apprentice? Well, you know that Gwen is my responsibility. If I don't save her, then I have no business… learning anything else from you. Morgana's right; I have to at least try."

Merlin and Gaius looked to be on the verge of a large argument, which Morgana could sense she was unwelcome to witness. "I'm going to go recruit some help; if you're coming, we'll meet you in the Main Square in an hour's time."

It was clear from Merlin's face that he intended to be there, and nothing Gaius could do short of tying him up would stop him. Morgana turned and left, the sounds of indistinct loud voices echoing down the corridor after she'd shut the door.

Ideally she'd send in a squad of knights to take down the monster, but to do that she'd need Uther's permission. To get Uther's permission she'd need to explain about the monster, and it would all be for nothing then as he would immediately blame Gwen. So it looked like her squad was going to have to be cut back to one knight; the one with whom she had nearly a decade worth of sibling-like rivalry as leverage to manipulate him to her will.

It would be a sad hero's expedition: a wounded knight, a court lady, and an untrained commoner. But with the deadline drawing closer and Gwen's life on the line, they'd just have to risk it.

Morgana thought back to Merlin's foolishly brave attempt to take Gwen's place, his immediate desire to risk life and limb fighting this monster for her, and his strange words about her being his responsibility. She had to repress a smile as she put the pieces he'd so desperately tried to hide together. This was a true silver lining on the clouds darkening the city, the first bright thing she'd seen since this awful plague began.

It looked like if they managed to save Gwen, she had a brave dashing hero and happily ever after waiting just around the corner for her.

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If Arthur had his personal pick of two companions to go fight a magical plague-causing monster with, he wouldn't have even considered picking Morgana and Merlin. Morgana because his father would kill him if the monster harmed a single hair on her head, and Merlin because, well… he couldn't even catch a mace, let alone fight with any amount of skill. Yet it was those two who'd singled him out and invited him along on their quest, so he was hardly in a position to argue at their inclusion – not that that stopped him from trying to dissuade Morgana from coming, for all the good that had done.

In the dark of the tunnels, with only the torchlight to warn them of the monster's approach, having Morgana and Merlin at his back felt more of a liability than an asset. Yet somehow he felt better at having someone, anyone, there than he had only minutes before when he'd heard low ominous growling coming from behind him despite being alone.

They peered around the corner, drawing near to the low rattling growl. Movement in the shadows around the bend brought the noise closer, and for the first time Arthur got a clear look at the monster. It was like a nightmare made flesh, with teeth like ivory daggers and its body a misshaped, hulking mass. He and the beast moved toward each other simultaneously, both preparing to strike. Dodging a blow from its long, clawed arms, Arthur thrust forward and stabbed the monster in its abdomen. It growled and swiped at him again. His sword felt like it was stuck in quickly congealing mortar and, unable to wrench it out, Arthur let go, his feet peddling backwards to avoid its blow. The monster seemed as affected by the sword protruding from deep in its gut as it would a splinter.

His retreat appeared to make the beast lose interest in him, as it instead focused on Morgana. She took a step forward, swiping at it with her torch. It reached a massive shadowed limb out to swipe at her. Arthur's heart jumped into his throat, but it didn't touch her, only knocking away her torch. Arthur jumped forwards again as Morgana backed away, weapon-less.

He waved his own torch in its face, and the monster took a step forwards. Emboldened, Arthur pursued, lunging at it with the torch as it was prepared to strike. Its right side flared a blinding yellow-orange for a moment as the fire spread. The monster's piercing scream mixed with a loud hissing noise, like a fire doused in water.

Arthur stumbled backwards and the creature swiped at him, missing by a large margin as though its vision had gone hazy, still crying in pain and rage. It reeled back a few steps, hunching inward on the side he'd burned it on. The monster was still coming on strong, though its attacks now were lacking in aim. Arthur dodged the blows, trying to weave his way forwards to strike the monster again with the torch, but one unlucky swipe of the creature’s arm slammed into the wound on his arm. A hiss of pain escaped through his lips, and his fingers slackened in reflex. The torch slipped in his palm, and when a second later Arthur had to leap backwards to avoid another swipe it slid clean out, clattering uselessly to the floor.

Arthur froze, eying the torch burning invitingly a few mere feet from the monster and trying to work out how he could get in and grab it without getting his head taken off by the afanc's flailing limbs.

Fingers closed around his shoulders, yanking him backwards. There was a sound like a rock being struck and then creaking from above, and suddenly the ceiling was crashing down in front of Arthur. Clouds of dust billowed from above and Arthur squeezed his tearing eyes shut. The sound of rock raining down and the monster's roar as it was hit by the large falling debris was all he was aware of.

Once everything had settled he opened his eyes and peered forwards, unable to believe his luck. Though the ceiling hadn't shown any signs of being unstable, it had collapsed directly onto where the monster was and spread no further, leaving the three humans untouched. Merlin released his hold on Arthur's shoulder, letting out a long breath as he took a step forwards. Morgana, on his other side, stepped forwards as well.

Arthur noted she had the torch again, presumably retrieved sometime during his fight, and she held it out to the pile of still rumble. "Is it dead?"

"I'd say…" a growl emanated from within the pile of rubble. "… _not_."

Loose small rocks toppled down the sides of the debris heap, and something stirred it from the center. Arthur snatched the torch out of Morgana's hand, his pulse raging in his ears as he watched the trembling heap. If the monster couldn't be harmed by a cascade of the large rocks or the weight of the earth, then how was he supposed to destroy this thing?

"Fire," Merlin breathed out, as if he'd come across some important realization.

When Arthur and Morgana looked at him, he elaborated hurriedly, glancing back and forth between the debris and them while he spoke. "I'm the only one without a torch and it hasn't so much as roared in my direction, only going after you two. When it was attacking Morgana it didn't swipe directly at her until _after_ it had knocked away her torch. When Arthur stabbed it with a sword it didn't falter, but burning it hurt it badly. All this time it's stayed in the shadows – away from the areas of the walls with torches. It lives in the water, fire is its weakness."

A claw shot out from the rubble, and then another. They swiped away the rocks and the creature's face was becoming visible, dagger-like teeth bared in a roar, as it dug itself out.

Arthur took a step forward, holding the torch out like he would a sword, and called over his shoulder, "Morgana, we need more flammable stuff. Go up the city and get more torches, or flaming arrows, or…"

"I know just the thing." The sound of her resounding footsteps echoed away as she ran back out the way they came in. Her voice echoed faintly through the tunnels when she called back, "Lead it towards the entrance, I won't be able to carry it far."

The monster's hind legs came free of the rubble just then, and it focused its sightless face on Arthur. He heard Merlin scrambling backward and the sound of a torch bracket being removed from the wall. As the beast stalked forwards, Merlin rejoined Arthur, flailing his torch about wildly.

"So… how are we supposed to lead it to the entrance?"

"Simple." Arthur grabbed Merlin by the arm, dragging him along, "We run, and it'll follow."

Like a madman's version of a children's game, they ran and dodged and parried and then ran some more. Chasing them was It, a being that fit that moniker like a hand in a glove, and to be tagged would bring the game to a grisly end. They could only cover ground in short spurts, slowing luring the afanc closer to the surface as they set themselves out as bait.

Arthur hadn't realized how far they'd truly gotten until they rounded a corner and were greeted by the white light of the sun. He could see the opening for the tunnel, and Morgana through it.

"Arthur!" she screamed, eyes going wide. "Behind you!"

Arthur felt the wind of the blow before the blow itself. A searing pain ripped diagonally across his chest, and Arthur cursed himself for not wearing his chainmail. The blow sent him flying backwards, and his head crashed against the rocky floor of the caves.

The world felt as though it had gone off kilter, like a wheel that had fallen from its spoke and was turning and turning with no purpose or logic to it. He could hear a woman screaming, but it took him an embarrassing amount of time to work out it was Morgana, and even more to sluggishly process she was yelling his name. There was a low hissing nearby, and he knew that was bad but struggled to pull the reason why from his memory.

Beside him there was some noise he couldn't identify, a voice he didn't recognize. It was deep and commanding, a voice that was powerful. The syllables it spoke passed through his head like water through a sieve, and he retained nothing but the faintest traces of their existence. Light flared at the edges of his vision, glowing a bright yellow, and he heard an inhuman shriek of anguish.

Then he felt warm, sooty hands on his head. The wheel was replaced on the spoke, and the world returned to coherence. Merlin's face hovering above him broke into a relieved grin, and he hauled Arthur to his feet. Arthur overbalanced, the world spinning slightly as he wobbled. Merlin grabbed one of his arms and slung it over his shoulder, clutching the torch awkwardly between them. He started to run forwards and Arthur had to as well to keep up.

They crossed through the entranceway and Merlin handed the torch over to Morgana, leading Arthur away from the entrance and depositing him on the ground. The soft impact jarred Arthur's chest, and he clutched a hand to it stifling a cry of pain.

From within the entrance he could hear a low growl, and his head snapped up. "The city… the people… we can't let it get out!"

"That won't be a problem," Morgana said. It was only then that he noticed the entrance was covered in piles of kindling and long, wooden poles that glistened with some kind of liquid. The afanc stepped into the entrance, the wood snapping like twigs beneath its feet. Morgana simply took a step backwards and threw the torch at the ground.

The effect was instantaneous. The fire spread through the wood with unnatural speed; obviously Morgana had doused it in oil to make it catch better. The entire entrance area went up in flames that licked half-way up the monster's body. It screamed in pain, its limbs thrashing helplessly as it burned. A smell like burning tar filled the air.

But the top half of the monster was untouched, and it didn't look like it would be keeling over soon. "This isn't going to kill it. We need a bigger fire."

"How do you suggest we make it bigger?" Morgana said, pinch faced. "I've already fed it with the most flammable things around."

She backed away, reaching into a pile of unlit torches at her feet. She began fiddling with a flint, trying to get one to light, glancing up at the burning monster every few seconds.

Merlin was staring forwards, fixated on the monster as though unable to look away. His lips were moving quickly, as though in prayer, but he was speaking too softly for Arthur to hear his words.

Arthur got to his feet, taking one of the torches from Morgana's pile. He was wondering how many times he'd have to bludgeon the thing on its head with fire for it to finally die when something miraculous happened. Like a godsend gift, an intense gust of wind blew through the Main Square, feeding the flames which fanned upwards to engulf the monster whole.

There was an unearthly cry of pain, and then silence. The fire continued to burn, with a large black lump in the center.

Morgana was the first to break her gaze from the sight. "Come on, we need to tell Uther before Gwen's execution."

Arthur turned and took a step forwards, then doubled over clutching his chest and biting back a noise trying to push through its way out his throat. Merlin and Morgana rushed forward, and Merlin pulled up Arthur's tunic to examine the wound.

His face tightened at what he saw. "You need to get to Gaius."

"No," Arthur pushed them aside, straightening up despite the intense pain this caused. "Guinevere is too close to Morgana; my father won't believe Morgana's report is objective. I need to be the one to tell him about the afanc."

Morgana roped one of Arthur's arms around her shoulders, and said to Merlin, "Uther will be in his council chambers. I'll take Arthur there; you fetch Gaius and bring him as quickly as you can."

Merlin reluctantly stepped away, torn, eying Arthur's tunic which felt clung, blood-dampened, to his torso. He looked worriedly at Arthur, then turned on heel and sprinted off in the direction of Gaius' chambers as if the hounds of hell were dogging his footsteps.

Morgana and Arthur started walking, not able to go very fast without making Arthur's vision go black. As they torturously made their way up the stairs and through the corridors, Arthur wished for the first time that his home was smaller.

More to distract himself from the pain than anything, Arthur asked, "Where did you find so much oil?"

Morgana smirked. "It just seemed a shame to waste it on burning an innocent girl to death, so I thought I'd put it to better use."

It took Arthur a second to work out what she meant by that. When he did, he didn't know whether to be impressed at her daring or disapproving of her flagrant disregard for the law. "You stole it from the royal executioner's storehouse?" Something else clicked in his mind just then, something that had been missing on their way through Main Square. He continued sardonically, "And let me guess, you requisitioned the wood from the stake?"

"It looked so tacky piled up in the courtyard."

"What about the guards?" Arthur asked, another thing missing from the scene popping into his head.

Morgana looked at him innocently, her voice dripping with faux sweetness. "Fortunately, you happened to want a word with them and so they had to go report to your chambers. I assured them there was nothing to worry about; I'd watch over the stake for them until they got back."

Arthur couldn't believe that had worked. Admittedly, guard duty was the most mind numbing task Arthur could think of, but surely his guards weren't thick enough to fall for such an obvious ploy to get them to leave their posts.

"Oh, don't be so put out, Arthur." Morgana seemed to be enjoying herself far too much. "It was child's play, admittedly, but just remember that the thickness of your men was crucial in me saving the day."

"Wha- save the day? _You?_ "

"Naturally," Morgana preened, jerking him around a corner with not enough force to hurt him, but just enough to make a statement about who was in control here. "Merlin did his fair share in deductive work on what was causing the plague, but you were more of a big tough distraction to buy me time than anything else. I set the trap, I killed the monster, so I saved the day."

Arthur was rendered speechless, wanting to protest this but finding no good counter. Morgana seemed be drinking the moment in and finding it very much to her taste. "Don't make that face, Arthur." With a definite smirk and gloat in her tone, she repeated her words from a month ago with embellishment. "After all, it's not every day a girl gets to save her knight in shining armour and, furthermore, rescue the damsel in distress, freeing the whole land from an evil curse in the process."

"Is this about Valiant? Have you still not gotten over that?"

"I saved your life then, and I saved the day now. Admit it."

"I did _not_ need saving."

The two continued to bicker all the way up to the council chambers, until they couldn't remember how the argument had even started.

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"This fish didn't come from the water, did it?" Merlin asked, eying the chunk of meat on his fork dubiously.

"Well, where else is it going to come from? The water's fine now. That's not your worry. This is the work of a very powerful sorcerer. I only hope you didn't come to her attention."

"Doubt it." Gaius looked nonplussed with Merlin's instant dismissal of his concern, so he added as justification, "Even Morgana didn't notice anything."

Gaius looked alarmed. "What do you mean 'even Morgana'?" Merlin mentally cursed his choice of words and something of that must have shown on his face, because Gaius looked like all his fears were confirmed. "Merlin, you told me that no one heard you cast the wind spell!"

"And they didn't," Merlin hurried to assure him. "Just, ah, earlier Arthur sort of went down and I sort of, um, used a fire spell to stop the afanc from mauling him. And Morgana was… sort of watching."

"Merlin!"

"What, you're saying I should have just left him for dead! Arthur hit his head when he went down.  He was barely conscious, he didn't see a thing. And Morgana didn't notice – she thinks she must have spilled some of the oil further in than she thought."

Sort of. When she brought up 'that strange ring of fire that saved Arthur' Merlin suggested it was caused by oil his torch got too close to. She seemed stuck between being half-convinced and half-unconvinced, so he'd quickly changed the topic by applauding her quick thinking in using the nearby flammable materials set up for Gwen's execution. Morgana's pride in her victory and her irritation at Arthur for refusing to give her the credit she was due proved to be sufficient distraction, and he could only hope with time she'd forget the other parts of defeating the afanc.

No point in telling any of this to Gaius, though, when it had already happened and the only thing he could do was yell at Merlin over it.

Instead Merlin put forth what he felt was the clinching argument, something Morgana said to him right after Gwen was released. "Trust me; the only deep dark secret Morgana thinks I'm harbouring is a hidden crush on Gwen."

Gaius finally looked appeased, going back to eating his supper. "Still, you need to be more careful." Gaius had taken several more bites of supper before he paused mid-chew as though something had just occurred to him. Once he'd swallowed, he asked as though unsure he wanted to know the answer, "Arthur was concussed, you said? I didn't see any sign of a head injury when I examined him."

"I, uh," Merlin fixed on his plate as he spoke, unsure how Gaius would react to this, "may have had something to do with that." Adding in as a feeble attempt at distraction, "By the way, does it seem to you that Arthur hits his head a _lot_?"

Gaius didn't take the poor bait, and Merlin cut his dinner into small pieces so he wouldn't have to look up. He himself was quite pleased with the results of healing Arthur - that being his first attempt with the healing spell for mild head injuries – but Gaius would probably view it as another reckless, unnecessary use of magic the way he usually did.

However, when Gaius' verdict finally came it was a strangely intoned, "Only you, Merlin. Only you."

"Only me what?"

"Only you could behave like an idiot and still have it all turn out well."

Merlin gave small huff of laughter, unsure whether he should feel insulted or complimented. Taking a bite of his supper and looking up, he could see Gaius giving a grumpy grudging smile. He hadn't known such smiles existed before he met the old physician, but he was growing well versed now. Those were the smiles Gaius gave when he thought Merlin did something stupid, but he was proud of him for doing it anyway.

Gaius pressed, "I trust you've learned your lesson in easy solutions?"

Merlin took his time chewing, mulling over everything that had happened since Gelhert Seward was found dead. Gaius' words came back to him: _An easy solution is like a light in the storm, Merlin. Rush for it at your peril, for it may not always lead you to a safe harbour._

He'd said this right after Gwen's arrest, and with his entire being riddled with guilt and regret at the time Merlin had agreed wholeheartedly, and perhaps a little blindly, with him. He still thought Gaius had a good point, one he would do well to remember, but his experiences since then had given him a new perspective. His mistake hadn't been in pursuing an easy solution; it had been in rushing for it with tunnel vision.

If he'd taken the time to stop and think about the consequences first, maybe he could have found a better way. If he'd just removed the poultice from under Tom's pillow, the lack of concrete evidence might have prevented Gwen's arrest. He could have cured all the sick street people so that it looked more like the disease was not always fatal, rather than the suspicious curing of one man, again removing the evidence as soon as the cure had taken effect.

If despite these precautions Uther still cried sorcery and found a scapegoat to pin it on, then Merlin could have disguised himself and admitted to it. He could say things Uther would expect from an evil sorcerer, such as setting the scapegoat up but in the end being unable to stand others getting the credit for his nefarious deeds. If Arthur still tried to defend him despite not knowing him, he could perform magic before their very eyes as proof. Using magic he could escape, taking the innocent person with him if Uther merely named them as his accomplice instead of clearing their name, and when he'd gotten far enough away undo his disguise.

At the time he'd been too close to the situation to think further than one or two steps at a time, and it had nearly cost him his friend. It had cost many their lives.

For each day the plague had lasted, people had died by the dozens while he did nothing. If using magic to cure them was an easy solution, then his guilt lay in ignoring that light in the storm and then thoughtlessly rushing towards it. The small family of tomato sellers was all the proof he needed that the easy solution didn't always lead to disaster; he'd heard no word of either grandfather or granddaughter's arrest, nor so much as a whisper that the little girl was ever ill. The use of magic in defeating the afanc also came without repercussion, so it was not as though using his powers to save lives invariably placed others in peril.

What he needed was find better ways of using his magic, so that it would go unnoticed as much as possible. And on the occasions it couldn't go unnoticed, such as large numbers of people mysteriously recovering from a deadly plague, then he needed to find a way to take the blame upon himself before Uther got it into his head that some poor hapless person was to blame.

Merlin needed to find a disguise, one he could reuse every time he needed someone to take the credit for magical deeds that couldn’t slide by unnoticed. It would be his next project when he was finished supper and could go read through his spellbook.

Gaius was still waiting for his answer, so Merlin said simply, "Yes, I think I've learned my lesson.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The moral? Just because he's an old learned man does not mean Gaius is always 100% right. Shocker.
> 
> In all seriousness, I do like the original moral of this episode that ill thought through plans to help may only worsen things. It’s the “ill thought through” part that is the clincher, though; just because something _might_ go wrong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try at all! I also think the writers overused this episode as justification for all their future choices, so they could point to it and say: “Look, Merlin couldn’t have done such-and-such because look at what trying to help led to with Gwen!” 
> 
> On another note… yay for Morgana doing something to contribute to winning the fight! 
> 
> Poor Arthur – without his babysitter he gets a lot of ouchies. 
> 
> Tyr Seward is Arthur’s stablehand from 5x07 who evil!Gwen frames for trying to kill Arthur. 
> 
> "Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." Just a nice famous bible quote to highlight how the mirrors of the ancient world kinda sucked. Unfortunately Merlin, never having seen a mirror before, does not realize Camelot's mirrors are impossibly good ... really, they're so darn good you'd almost swear _magic_ was involved.
> 
> The word "potato" comes from a different language than what Tenoch and Miya speak, and looks and sounds nothing like the original word besides. Merlin said ‘potatoes’ on the show so I can’t use a different word for them, and even if I could no one would know what I was talking about. Just don’t ask me why they’re introducing them to Camelot as potatoes.
> 
> If you’re wondering where Tenoch was in the original episode, (besides non-existent, because no one at the BBC could be bothered to take two minutes to google tomato and skim read) his talk with Gaius took place while Merlin was visiting Kilgharrah. So what Merlin lost in being prepared for fighting the afanc, he gained in a revised moral. 
> 
> Merlin seems to have forgotten that most people are illiterate and thus leaving a note is a bit of an iffy solution. Luckily for him, I’m declaring that, for plot convenience, Tenoch can read. 
> 
> I am aware that Gwen’s father is not, in fact, her “only family” as she has a living brother. Merlin, however, was not aware of this. 
> 
> Bizarrely, Gwen did not end up making much of an appearance despite the episode revolving around her. I’m as surprised as you. I noticed in the last one that nothing much with Gwen was influenced by Kilgharrah, which is one of the arguments in the Kilgharrah Conspiracy Theory. Honestly, I have to question Kilgharrah’s future knowledge sometimes: if we are to take it that Gwen was actually the one who ended up lifting the ban on magic, then why did he say nothing about her to Merlin?! Nothing like: Merlin, you must defeat the Afanc and save Gwen, or the Golden Age will never come about. Or: Merlin, you must make sure Arthur marries Gwen, trust me it’s pivotal to freeing magic. But he didn’t, so he had next to no effect on her relationship with Merlin, so it’ll be a while before I can give her a bigger role.


	3. 1x03 - Two Sides of the Same Coin

Books and herbs and plates were swiped off the table without the slightest regard for their well-being. Merlin ignored the loud thudding of the heavier objects and the sound of glass shattering, already moving halfway across the room. His panicky hands fumbled with the knobs of the store cupboard as he flung it open. He grabbed the jar he needed and raced back without wasting precious few seconds closing the cupboard doors.

He thrust the jar into Gaius' waiting hands and ran to fetch water while the master physician cleaned the wounds of the man lying on their table.

Halls and streets passed through Merlin's vision in a blur. He only spared them enough attention to dodge around the other, slower pedestrians. The rest of his mind remained within the physician's chambers, not budging from the injured man.

The holes in his chainmail ringed by red soaked links looked bad enough, but after it was removed a more gruesome sight was revealed. His chest was a mottled discoloured rainbow painted by bruises sickly yellows and greens and purple-reds. These were only the most minor of his injuries, despite professing at least one broken rib. For the sickly rainbow was punctuated by bright red dots spilling over and dripping downwards in a trail of blood.

The unconscious face was twisted in pain, unhindered by the attempt at stoicism that would surely have tried to mask it if the owner had any say in the matter. But the great matted patch of blond hair dyed a crusty red-brown told that no such futile protests would be made anytime soon.

During his months as Gaius' full-time apprentice Merlin had seen worse injuries. Despite all their best efforts, some of their patients died, a fact he was slowly getting used to. But he hadn't yet had someone teetering at the threshold between life and death whom he knew so well. All the calm professionalism Gaius had spent four months drilling into him fled at the familiar face.

He frequently teased Arthur about nearly being killed on a biweekly basis, but he hadn't actually thought that the next time Arthur was dragged through Gaius' door he would already be so close to death.

On one of his trips back, when there were a good number of buckets lined up, Gaius called Merlin over. He instructed him tersely, "Hold him up for me."

Merlin grabbed Arthur's prone form by the underside of his arms, holding his torso upright while Gaius bandaged the multitude of injuries there.

"He's lost a lot of blood," Gaius muttered. His hands were flying as he wound the bandages. In displeasure spawned from worry, Gaius bit out at no one in particular, "What dim-wit took the arrows out without also binding the wounds!"

The knight who'd brought the prince in - Sir Leon, if Merlin recalled correctly - responded even though the question had been rhetorical. "Prince Arthur did."

Gaius' expression on hearing this was black, like he wished he could give the prince a piece of his mind. Merlin alternated between holding Arthur upright for Gaius and fetching supplies for him. The pale cast of Arthur's skin worried him, even after he was bandaged so as not to lose any more blood. Two months into his apprenticeship he'd seen a man with Arthur's milky pallor die from a gash to his leg, an area far less vital than where Arthur had been hit, because his body had been unable to handle the shock of losing so much blood.

Hyper-aware of Sir Leon's presence, inspiration hit Merlin after using up the water in cleaning Arthur's head wound. He held out the bucket to the knight and got rid of him by sending him to fetch more from the pump. Merlin waited thirty seconds after Leon left before he raced upstairs and grabbed his spellbook. He'd bookmarked the healing chapter after the fiasco with the afanc, and so he'd found the right spells before even reaching the bottom of the staircase.

The spell to mitigate head wounds was one he'd gotten much practice in, mostly on Arthur himself, as head wounds had the wonderful tendency to render their subjects either unconscious or otherwise scrambled their awareness of their surroundings, and thus the patient didn't tend to notice when he muttered strange things over their heads. Aside from that spell, the healing spells Merlin was proficient in tended to be ones that he could practice on himself – which, unfortunately, were only spells to heal simple cuts and bruises.

The spell to speed along blood replenishment, therefore, he'd never tried before. He made sure to read it thrice before he incanted it, hand hovering over Arthur's heart as he did so. Merlin peered anxiously at Arthur's face, but there was no noticeable change. Some healing spells needed time to take effect - he desperately hoped this was one of those. He didn't dare redo the spell, even though he wasn't sure it had worked, as the book warned that consecutive dosage was fatal.

Merlin shut the book, stepping away from Arthur and going to hide it away again before Sir Leon returned. His great idea had lasted all of two minutes, and now there was truly nothing more he could do to help except keep Arthur warm and pray. On his way down he caught Gaius' eye. Gaius looked torn between disapproval and approval, unsure whether to scold Merlin for using magic in broad daylight or commend him for upping the odds of Arthur's survival.

About ten seconds later the door flung open, and in walked the king. He loudly demanded the details of his son's condition from Gaius, ignoring Merlin as if he was a piece of human-shaped furniture. Merlin took the opportunity to grab the herb satchel and go pick more of the ones they’d, hopefully, soon need. When he came back the king was seated in silent vigil by his son's side.

Merlin grabbed one of the books Gaius had set for him that day and sat on the second bottom step of the staircase. Unable to keep from sneaking glances at Arthur, it took him an exorbitant amount of time to finish one page. And once he did, he realised he couldn't recall a single thing he'd read and had to start over. After reading the same page about six times and still not having any idea what it was talking about, Merlin slammed the book shut and threw it down beside him.

After several hours had passed the king was called away by something. Merlin took his place by Arthur's bedside, re-securing the blankets around him even though they had barely slipped. Unable to take the inaction any longer, Merlin stood and started grinding up herbs for a pain-relief potion.

Now that the king was gone he could take out his spellbook and study from it while he watched over Arthur's condition, but he suspected he'd have the same difficulties focusing as he did with the medical book. In any case, he'd reached something of a plateau in his magical studies. Most of the spells he hadn't yet tried were either too advanced for him, too conspicuous to use, too dangerous to try without an instructor overseeing his attempts, or needed the consent of other people to practice on. It was only the first category, the ones that were too advanced for him, that he could work towards, but even so it was now taking him days to master one spell when before he could breeze through dozens in that time. It wasn't nearly as interesting to repeat the same words over and over day after day, sometimes for weeks at a time, without seeing any effect. When at last it did work it felt that much more exhilarating to have mastered it, but then he'd move on to the next spell and the long, slow process would repeat.

Immediately following the afanc fiasco he'd spent a good amount of time mastering a variety of disguises, amusing himself by turning up to Gaius with some minor medical complaint and seeing which ones fooled him. After trial and error, he settled on a variant of the ageing spell that held without difficulties - perhaps a bit too well, as Merlin needed a potion to turn himself back to normal - for his future alter ego he’d use the next time he needed to perform magic in public.

In recent months, however, the spells he was learning weren't anything he could see an immediate use for. Someday in the distant future being able to strengthen weapons with the words _bregdan anweald gafeluc_ might come in handy, but Merlin couldn’t picture the situation when it would so it hadn’t been very thrilling to master.

With the plateau in his magical studies he poured himself more into his education on Gaius' work, to Gaius' great delight. The old man seemed like a little child, eagerly showing off his knowledge in long, animated lectures to accompany the readings. It was a shame that the subject was so technical and boring that Merlin had no great love of it the way Gaius had, and spent most of the lectures struggling to keep from yawning or showing other signs of blatant disinterest for fear of hurting his guardian's feelings. He took to dawdling on his rounds, giving Tyr Seward and other interested castle hired hands mini-lessons on how to read, and chatting at length with each of the patients he was delivering remedies to, anything to draw them out so he could spend less time studying. In that respect, Arthur was a godsend. He had once spent so long bickering with the prince that the great bell had rung to signal midday before either of them noticed they'd spent three hours doing nothing but insulting each other.

Arthur was frustrating, arrogant, brave, and he broke up the monotony of learning things out of old books quite nicely. And now he was incapable of responding to any of the accusations of idiocy Merlin directed at his unconscious form, making the empty silence between Merlin's words stretch too long.

So Merlin made up potions and poultices from directions in Gaius' books, stoked the fire to keep the room warm even though he was sweating buckets and had to keep making trips to the pump to replace the liquids he was losing, and did a rich variety of tasks around the room that didn't strictly need doing, all the while shooting Arthur glances every other minute and wondering if it was just his hopeful imagination that he was looking less pallid than before.

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The last thing Arthur remembered was ringing in his ears and the taste of blood in his mouth.  He’d been bludgeoned across the head with the broad side of the sword in a wild swing by a half-dead bandit, and then everything went dark.

Opening his eyes he found himself, unsurprisingly, staring up at the ceiling of Gaius' chambers. He'd been visiting here far too often in recent months, so he was not thrown off to be waking up to the sight as he had been the first few times.

Arthur tried to sit up, but shooting pain in his chest warned him that that was a bad idea. He flopped back onto the table with a grunt. Immediately he heard the sound of footsteps. Merlin's face came into his view, looking down on him with a wide relieved grin. Merlin turned away and reached beyond Arthur's vision for something, reappearing with a clay cup of water.

"Here. You need to replace the liquids you lost."

Arthur would dearly love to retort that he _did_ know a thing or two about recovering from being injured, thank you very much _Mer_ lin, but the effort to get sound out of his dry throat seemed ridiculously energy-consuming so he gave it up. It was probably for the best, in any case, as Merlin would take that as an invitation to poke fun at the amount of time Arthur spent in Gaius’ chambers.

He took the cup and drank, hating that it seemed like he was obeying _Mer_ lin, of all people. Strangely, his pride was never prickled by having to follow Gaius' instructions, but then Gaius was old and wise and didn't insult him every time they met.

Merlin refilled his glass every time it emptied, until finally Arthur couldn't take any more. "Enough!" he forced out of his scratchy throat. "If I drink any more I'll be leaking water out of my ears!"

Not his most witty argument, but with the way he was feeling he thought it was impressive he'd been able to make one at all.

"Oh, forgive me, _my Lord_ ," Merlin rolled his eyes, unable to suppress the grin still stretched across his face though it looked like he was making a valiant effort to. "I _was_ slightly concerned that you lost a large amount of blood and then slept for twenty hours during which you couldn't eat or drink, but I apologise. Clearly it was presumptuous of me, though you nearly bleeding out was entirely your fault. Hasn't anyone ever told you that that only suicidals or fever-softened bleat-brains remove an arrow without something on hand to stem the blood flow?"

Unable to think through the pain for a good retort to that, Arthur instead asked, "Where's Gaius?"

"Off tending to the Lady Morgana - she's had another nightmare. Gwen said she woke up screaming something about you and spiders."

"Morgana's been dreaming about me?" he twisted the words, looking forward to their next meeting now he had this as ammunition. "Let me guess, even in her dreams she relies on me to save her from the things?"

In many ways Morgana seemed to disregard her rank, but give her a spider or bee - or any kind of bug that had once bitten or stung her as a curious, adventurous little girl - and she would act as any other noblewoman did: scream and run and yell for the nearest person unafraid of the bug to get rid of it for her. Curiously, she was immune to the fear her peers held towards amphibians and reptiles. Once, soon after she'd come to live in Camelot, she'd given Uther a scare by walking in with a six-foot long serpent wrapped around her neck like a writhing scarf, and refused to eat for six days after he'd ordered the snake killed - officially because it might be poisonous, but Arthur suspected it was more done as a punishment for nearly giving the king a heart attack.

But despite her fearlessness of possibly venomous slithering reptiles, Arthur would never let her live down all the times he'd had to run in and rid her rooms of an eight-legged miniscule being of terror.

"Gwen made it sound more like she dreamed you were being chased by spiders, actually," Merlin replied, looked perversely pleased to be able to burst Arthur's bubble.

"Oh, so she was _worried_ about me," Arthur said, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "That was kind of her."

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to thank her for you." Merlin moved out of Arthur's vision again.

When he didn't reappear, Arthur bit his tongue to keep from complaining like a little child who needed constant attention to be kept happy. After counting the number of tiles on the ceiling, however, he couldn't stand it any longer. He twisted his head first to the left, and when he couldn't see Merlin there he turned it more gingerly to the right. To his surprise his head injury barely stung at the pressure he'd put on it. Recently Gaius must have found some new cure for head wounds, because they seemed to be healing much more quickly as of late.

He spotted Merlin puttering over something by the fireplace, but his turned back concealed whatever it was. "What are you doing?"

"Heating up some broth." Merlin backed away, revealing a large pot hanging over the fire. He fetched a small bowl, and spooned liquid from the pot into it. "If you can drink, you can take in something of sustenance."

Merlin crossed back and held out the bowl to Arthur, revealing an unappetizing thin green-brown liquid within. "Can't I get something... _better_? Like, oh I dunno, something to go _in_ the broth to make it into real soup?"

"Well that depends: how much do you fancy vomiting up what you eat?" Merlin grabbed one of Arthur's arms and dragged it up, forcing the soup into his hands. Faced with the choice to either close his fingers around it or be drenched in very thin soup, Arthur took the bowl. Staring at the puke-coloured liquid warily, he raised his head and brought the bowl to his lips in a sip, as Merlin hadn't seen fit to provide him with a spoon.

The soup tasted like where vegetables went to die a watery death, with the emphasis on the watery. "Have you never heard of a little something called _seasoning_?"

"You're welcome for not upsetting your princely hurt little tummy with too much spice." With a grin that was far too wide, Merlin said with relish, "Drink up."

Arthur eyed the bowl with distaste, and Merlin added far too innocently, "Unless you want to lie on that table, weak as a kitten, for the rest of your life. But you don't have to worry; I'm sure Morgana will be more than willing to save you again if you are.”

"That didn't happen, not once!"

Nonetheless, Arthur drank the off-putting liquid, making Merlin smile as if he'd won a great battle. Arthur thrust the bowl into Merlin's chest and let go. To Arthur's great amazement, despite Merlin best bumbling attempts and the fact that it was right against him, he didn't manage to catch it. Instead it somehow slipped through his arms and out of Arthur's vision. The sound of clay smashing alerted him to its fate.

Just then the door opened and Arthur hurriedly closed his eyes. He listened to Gaius tell off Merlin for breaking a bowl and Merlin's unheeded protests that it was all Arthur's fault. He heard Gaius' footsteps go to the other side of the room and Merlin's black mutterings as he swept up the fragments. "I know you're faking it; no one can fall asleep that fast."

Arthur didn't so much as twitch in response. It wasn't _his_ fault; anyone with the slightest bit of hand-eye coordination would have been able to catch that bowl. Merlin should blame the fates for decreeing him an uncoordinated buffoon all his life.

"Thanks a lot, you're welcome for the meal, by the way." When Arthur still didn't react, Merlin said unconvincingly, "You know, I liked you a lot better when you were _actually_ unconscious."

Several hours later, ravenous with hunger, Arthur opened his eyes again. That Gaius did not immediately pour cup after cup of water down his throat made Arthur wonder if he truly did believe Merlin that Arthur had been awake earlier. Either way, Arthur got a much better soup as Gaius decreed they could all eat whatever Merlin made for Arthur. Merlin looked disappointed at this news, and Arthur wondered in annoyance if he'd purposely made the soup earlier into a pitiful excuse that hardly merited the name, especially as he could grudgingly admit that this soup was really good - just not aloud.

Come nightfall under Merlin and Gaius' watchful eye, Arthur was allowed to stumble back to his chambers after a visit from his father decreed that _his_ son would not continue sleeping on a common dining table. Arthur and Merlin bickered the whole way, and by the time Arthur had been placed in bed with potions upon potions set out on his bedside table, Gaius looked ready to bash their heads together and be done with it.

Arthur slept well until late the next morning. Scarcely half an hour after he woke Merlin arrived in his chambers, pestering him with a reiteration of the instructions for Arthur's potions and demanding he drink it on the spot. Arthur bristled at the implication he wouldn't drink the foul looking and smelling concoctions unless supervised - a fear that wasn't totally without foundations, as Arthur had something of a history for doing so and it was only the knowledge that he had to look unassailable by the time of King Bayard's visit next week that stopped him from seriously considering it this time.

The days passed like years, each more mind-numbingly uneventful than the last. Even Merlin's visits weren't quite up to their usual standard of interesting, as he spent at least half of them nagging Arthur to drink his potions and calling him an idiot for pulling the arrow out in the first place. Uther embraced Gaius’ ban on physical exertion, and thus Arthur was forbidden from training and going on patrol, until he was beginning to wonder if it was possible to go insane from having nothing to do. He'd taken to summoning Merlin for ridiculous made up physical complaints, just to see his hilariously annoyed face as Arthur claimed he felt like he had hot triangles on his arm and cold squares on his feet. Finally, after a tortuous week of waiting, the day of Bayard's visit came.

As it was a momentous occasion Arthur was at last allowed to do something other than recuperate in his chambers. He was grateful for the change of pace, even though without a doubt the day would be incredibly dull, full of long-winded boring speeches and nothing the slightest bit interesting would occur.

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Merlin was breathless by the time he reached the Hall of Ceremonies, having sprinted there all the way from Gaius' chambers. The warning of Bayard's maidservant was still ringing through his ears, and he couldn't believe how stupid he was to believe Arthur could get through a week without nearly dying. It would appear that if he was forbidden to go out seeking deathly threats, they would instead come to him.

Merlin threw open the doors, and saw everyone in the room about to drink in what was evidently a toast. Mind blank in panic, Merlin yelled out, running forward to grab Arthur's goblet, "Stop! It's poisoned; don't drink it!"

It was only then that Merlin fully realised he, a common commoner of the lowliest origins of anyone in that room, was now standing in front of all the highest ranking nobility and warriors from two countries as the centre of attention. He ploughed on with his accusations, desperately telling everyone gathered that Bayard had laced Arthur goblet, and became the centre point between a brewing conflict between those in blue and those in red. And somehow, as his betters argued in front of him, the goblet was passed to him and he was given a choice for his pains in warning them: to die by poison, or to die be the sword.

Uther really needed to work on how he rewarded people for saving his son's life, was all Merlin could think blankly when he heard this.

Arthur tried to take the goblet back, insisting he'd drink it, but Merlin held on. "No," Merlin said, repeating the word over and over to Arthur, hardly able to believe what he was doing himself.

If he drank he'd die, if he didn't drink he'd be given over to Bayard to _do with as he will_ , as Uther had put it. If Arthur drank then Arthur would die, and then what happened to Merlin was anyone's guess. As the king had so callously put Merlin in a no-win situation not a minute before, Merlin was in no way inclined to think he'd take it well when Merlin was proved right too late. The last time Merlin had seen Uther not take news well was during the plague, when he'd condemned Gwen to death for having a father who got better.

So Merlin could choose to drink and save Arthur's life, or let Arthur drink and bank on the uncertain hope that would save his own. Somehow he found himself saying as though he'd already decided when truly he was still torn, "It's all right. I'll drink it."

He looked to each member of the gathered royalty who were watching to see whether or not he died, Arthur the only one who had the decency to look like that would be a terrible thing to happen. He lifted the glass to Bayard, the cause of this all, and to Arthur, who had better not forget this, ignoring Uther as Uther had ignored Merlin's life in his decisions. Merlin lifted the goblet to his lips and swung his head back.

For a moment afterwards Merlin thought he'd been wrong, and he'd placed his life in jeopardy for nothing.

Then he felt a faint tickling in his throat, which fired into an angry itch, spreading down his throat into his lungs and chest. He couldn't breathe, he was suffocating. The world swayed and began to darken.

His last thought was a fervent prayer that Gaius had an antidote.

As blackness consumed his vision, the last thing he saw was Arthur's horrified face.

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He was sinking, through what he knew not, only that it was less than air, a true nothingness.  He could feel it all around him, burning hot; the nothingness burned in its absence.  He could not describe his surroundings.  They were more than black, though black was all that he saw, because the emptiness around him thrummed with the echo of life.

As he descended deeper and deeper he became aware of voices whispering around him. Like the rustle of wind through the branches of trees he could hear them, yet the meaning escaped him.  It was soft and melodic, the different pitches and shades of voices calling out, an echo of something familiar that he loved.  He sank further, listening, and thought to himself that he should recognize these voices and the words they spoke.

His memory was as undefined as his surroundings.  He knew he had not always been here, but he could not call forth an idea of who he’d been or what he’d done before coming here.  Even how and when he’d come here escaped him.  He tried to attach names to the voices whispering around him and found he could not.  He tried to remember his own name, and the answer slipped away like water seeping through his fingers, unable to be retained and going further from his reach the longer he tried to hold on to it.

He knew, without knowing why, that this was not somewhere he had wanted to come.  He had been desperate to avoid this place, and it was not good that he was here.  He should leave.

He, for the first time he could clearly remember, moved.  He flailed his arms as though trying to swim up through the nothingness, and flailed his legs as though they could propel him away.  Tendrils of blackness blocked his path up, a solid wall between him and that direction, and he continued to sink.

He wasn’t bothered; he didn’t know for sure up was the way to leave.  Reorienting himself, he dived deeper, riding the force that was pulling him down and down.  He pushed through the blackness, peering out into the void, and as he looked closer it seemed to him that the void was veiling shapes.

He wandered closer, looking and guessing at what he saw.  The longer he looked the clearer it became; he was in the thread working of a giant tapestry.  Dodging through giant fibers, he pulled himself to the other side, and pushed away.  If he could see it at a distance, he thought, he’d know what the tapestry looked like.  That seemed like the most important thing to know, more than all his missing memories, more than the route out.

This time as he fell he was in control.  He stopped himself once he was deep enough to see the pattern of the tapestry, floating in place.  He looked to all directions: up, down, left, right, frontwards and backwards.  No matter where he looked, he could see it unfolding like a great scroll that had come unwound and was spilling outwards without stop.

He floated closer to examine the cloth, marvelling at the intricacies woven through, each golden thread linking flawlessly into the next.  Threads were connected here and separated there, new thread tying in and old threads tying out and more new threads tying in; it repeated in a pattern that subtly changed as it went along.  Designs flowered and withered, new designs taking their place only to fade out in their turn, but through it all strands of shining gold linked them.

After a great long time of drifting along, following the pattern in the direction it was traveling towards, the end of the fabric came into sight.  There was no hem, however; the tapestry was unfinished. Millions of threads stuck out from the end, fastened to a wall behind them and waiting to be woven into the great pattern.  Upon the wall were many criss-crossing inky lines.  The lines continued the pattern like a diagram, but in places the model was imperfect.  There were large splotches, smudges, multitudes of lines competing to be the chosen pattern, some so violently that all there was was a great splattering of ink that made it impossible to read the layout.  In other places, it was not ink at all that marked the pattern.  Certain points were made out of solid gold, protruding from the wall itself like they’d been there from the very beginning, immovable. 

He traced the golden threads leading to the unfinished edge of the fabric.  Some glowed brighter than others; one in particular called out to him, and he knew that it was his.  It shone like a reflection of the light of the sun, a pale cast to its light yet so bright in spite of that.  Running alongside to it was another, shining just as brightly, more deep golden in hue, like the sun itself. 

The two strands of fiber encircled each other, like a two-stranded braid they could not be separated and were stronger together than either was alone.  In places another fiber would tug at one or the other, but even when they pulled away neither entirely left.  Their path was marked out by many lines after the edge of the tapestry, blotched in places where they intersected with other routes and running through several of the spots of gold.

He moved backwards from the edge, tracing the two strands back to their beginning.  The strand that was not his began first, and he reached out to touch it.  A great humming arose from all around, and shapes twisted around him in the darkness.

**_Hark_** _,_ it seemed to be singing to him, a song born of life and calling out the tale of life, and he did.  He watched and he listened, and saw courageous deeds and glory, a young boy born into royalty and destined for greatness. 

**_God sent him to comfort the people; He had seen the dire distress that they suffered before, leader-less a long while; it was for them that the Lord of Life, Wielder of Wonder, granted him worldly honour._ **

_Arthur,_ the thread hummed, with that name laying the essence of its possessor bare – all his flaws, all his strengths, his moments of loneliness and doubt intermixed with those of triumph and love.  All were chronicled along the length of the strand, and the impressions of his counterpart overflowed in the void of his memories.

**_So ought a youth, by virtue of goodness, give freely while yet under his father’s wing.  Then, in after years when war comes, steadfast companions shall stand by him still.  The people will loyally serve him for, among any of the peoples of the earth, great deeds will prosper a man._ **

For the first time he could make out the speech of the familiar whispering from the abyss, with one word jumping out to him in the low murmuring.  _Arthur_ , the ever present voices whispered to him, _could be walking into a trap_.

Terrified, he called out the one name he knew, _Arthur, Arthur,_ and followed the bright strings to the end.  There, before him, the tapestry was extending.  The string that was his was dimming, the outer golden glow fading and only the silvery white core shining still.  He ignored it, anxiously watching the route the brighter string was travelling.

It interconnected with another string, one whose strands ran through with a darkness like an infection.  The brighter string continued on with it, oblivious to the darkness within.

_Arthur, it’s a trap._

**_When war comes, steadfast companions shall stand by him still._ **

He hovered anxiously, following the progress of the continuing tapestry, tracing the path of the one line.  It was coming up to a blotched portion, where different lines strove to continue the path.  The threads reached it, and the darkened strand pulled away, veering off on another path.  The bright strand, _Arthur_ , remained stuck in the dark blotch, with so many paths warring to be his it was impossible to see which would be.

_Arthur.  It’s too dark._

**_Give freely while yet under his father’s wing._ **

Give freely, he thought, and pulled on the thread that was his.  It was loose around Arthur’s now, but still there.  If he concentrated he could feel the connection.  One hand on each string, he thrust open the link, sending forth the waning light of his string to the other.  His awareness swam, and he was fast losing sight of what was in front of him.  But he could still feel the two strings under his fingertips, and he continued on as a bridge between the two of them, binding them together even as they were unravelling.

The darkness shifted, becoming tangible.  Weight pressed around him, the nothingness felt exorbitantly heavy.  He was there, looking down at Arthur hanging onto a cliff and with monsters encroaching from below.  He ascended, guiding the way up, bathing the area in light the colour of his dimming thread.

He called out to Arthur, encouraging him to come, and together they escaped from the darkness into the light of day.

Arthur looked wonderingly at him, and he at last let go of the connection.  Its use had been served, and he couldn’t hold it up for much longer.

He sank forwards, feeling the fabric of the tapestry press against his form, and – too exhausted for thought - knew nothing else for a long time.

Like a jolt of light, something shook his consciousness, waking him from his slumber.  The darkness was receding around him, a bright light shone down from above.  He reached out to it, and it drew closer.  He struggled towards it, the darkness catching on his ankles like vines struggling to hold him down.  With difficulty he kicked free of them and, like a diver returning to the surface, propelled himself towards the approaching light, meeting it head on.  He was blinded as he entered it, and everything went dark.

The voices that had been whispering the whole while grew louder, like he’d heard them for deep under water and after breaking the surface could hear them as they truly were.

One was high and soft, the other low and slow.  The first reminded him of his earliest memories, of four long hollow thin tubes hanging in a window and gently chiming whenever the wind blew.  The other reminded him of the sound of wind in a great oak tree, where the steadiness and firmness mellowed the sound.  He could attach names to them now, _Gwen_ and _Gaius_ , and he could understand their speech without any difficulties.

As his memories returned to him he knew who he was and why he really should have been trying harder to escape from the darkness.  Upon regaining his memories, he realized that the only reason it was still dark was because his eyes were shut.

He opened them and, seeing his good friend and the man who was like a father to him in a tearful embrace, Merlin joked, “That’s disgusting.  You should be ashamed of yourself; you’re old enough to be her grandfather.”

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The strange things he’d seen in his near death experience lingered with him.  At the time they’d seemed the most natural things to see or do, but upon awaking to reality it was brought home to him how bizarre it had all been.  He was left with two explanations: either the most realistic and well-remembered dream he’d ever had had revolved around Arthur, or he’d had an incredibly confusing vision.

When he described what he saw to Gaius, his mentor had been equally torn.  On the one hand, the subconscious took events from everyday life and molded dreams from bizarre imaginings of them.  The last thing he’d saw before he’d passed out was Arthur, he’d raced into the Hall of Ceremonies for Arthur, he’d drunken the poison for Arthur.  It wouldn’t be surprising for him to have a dream that revolved around Arthur.

But then there were the unexplainable things.  Merlin had apparently been mumbling the song he’d heard, and he hadn’t even recited it in the Common Tongue, but in the Old Tongue.  That was weird, but not unexplainable; what was unexplainable was that his fevered mutterings had formed some kind of light spell that Gaius had never seen before.  Magic did not work that way; you could not just take any old phrase in the Old Tongue and turn it into a spell.  Gaius’ description of the orb of light he’d created sounded far too similar to the dimming light of his tapestry thread, and the light he’d used to illuminate the cave Arthur had been in.

Which was another thing that didn’t add up.  Gaius had suggested that even if Merlin didn’t remember Gaius’ and Gwen’s conversation, that he could have registered it on a subconscious level and thus imagined the witch who’d framed Bayard and the cave Arthur had been stuck in.  But that didn’t explain how Merlin could sketch a perfect replica of the flower Arthur had grabbed, or how he knew that the Caves of Balor were infested with giant spiders, or that there was an opening at the top of the caves.

Merlin flipped avidly in the book on brain physiology that Gaius had left for him while he went out to do his rounds.  Seated on a kitchen chair with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he started reading the section on dreams, trying to figure out how much of what he saw he should believe, and how much was hokey nonsense conjured by his subconscious.

He’d gotten two-thirds of the way through when the door opened.  As there had been no knock Merlin assumed it was Gaius and didn’t look up, but when the new voice spoke he almost jumped in the air.

“You seem to have recovered well,” Uther Pendragon said, as if that was an adequate greeting. 

Considering the only reason Merlin had been dying of poison was because of him, and that he had apparently gaoled Arthur and forbidden anyone from giving Merlin the cure, Merlin really did _not_ feel that was an appropriate thing to say.  _I’m sorry_ , would have been preferable, but as that was incredibly unlikely Merlin would have taken an _it was regrettable, but necessary_.  ‘You seem to have recovered well’, Merlin thought blackly, may well go down as one of the most tactless things anyone had ever said to greet their near murder victims, ever.

It was a wonder Arthur was a decent guy underneath all his princely pride, after being raised by Uther.

“Your Majesty,” Merlin said, inclining his head so that he could keep from saying something that would spell his death so soon after he’d evaded it.

“I came to thank you, for once again saving the life of my son,” said Uther, surprising Merlin enough to straighten up again.

For a strange moment, Merlin thought Uther was going to apologize.  Such ludicrous thoughts were quickly put to rest, however, when the king cleared his throat.  “This is the second time you have done so and, though you lost your position due to unseemly conduct, in light of the circumstances under which such allegations against a knight were given, I believe we can put the past in the past.”

Merlin wondered who Uther thought he was fooling; as if everyone in Camelot didn’t know that everything Merlin had said about Valiant was true.  Even Uther looked uncomfortable with what he was saying, like he knew it was unreasonable to blame Merlin for speaking the truth but was unwilling to act as if Merlin hadn’t done something outrageous in doing so because he was beholden to whatever bogus code of morality Uther used to measure the world against.

“Your recent actions speak well enough for your character – though not necessarily your wits.” 

Merlin had to bite his lip to literally hold his tongue. He’d just gotten his life out of jeopardy and he would not place it back in it again. He had more self-control and self-preservation than that and _would not._

(Seriously, though, was this how Uther spoke to someone who saved the life of his son, _three_ times as without Merlin’s warning Arthur would have been killed by Valiant’s shield whether Uther would admit it or not! And this was not counting all the times Merlin had secretly speeded along Arthur’s recovery from head wounds, the death defying experience with the afanc, and two weeks ago now when he’d pulled Arthur back from the brink of death.)

“You shall be rewarded.”  The hairs on the back of Merlin’s neck rose with a horrible sense of déjà vu. “You shall be reinstated as Prince Arthur’s manservant.”

Once again, Merlin was speechless with horror, left wondering how on earth he could keep his head but refuse the position.  Just because he and Arthur were sort of friends in a very unconventional way didn’t mean he wanted to go back to polishing his armour and mucking out his horses.

Uther misinterpreted the cause of his speechlessness, for he turned to go, looking pleased.  “No need to thank me.”

He didn’t bother to close the door behind him, and Merlin could see Arthur standing right outside.  He had obviously heard at least the tail end of the conversation, for he looked just as shocked as Merlin felt.  Their eyes met, and then they both looked away.

Of all the ways they could have been thrown together again, it was by decree of the king.  This was just like it had been after Merlin saved Arthur from Mary Collins, only now they sort of got along instead of flat-out hating each other.  Somehow, that made it worse, because Arthur knew Merlin didn’t want to be his servant and, unlike before, Merlin actually cared what Arthur thought, a sentiment Arthur’s recent quest for a magical flower to cure him suggested was not just one-sided.

This was going to be unbearably awkward.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Merlin’s NDE was very strange.
> 
> Apparently Merlin was quoting Beowulf while he was unconscious. That was fun (*cough* not *cough*) trying to find a translation for that didn’t translate it into things like 'quit him well' (ummm… what?). The translation’s not the most accurate, but it makes a lot more sense than any of the more poetic versions.
> 
> Anyways, destiny is a jerk to Merlin. Without Merlin tagging along Arthur gets a whole lot more injuries on his patrols and hunting trips. Inevitably one of these times Arthur would get a fatal wound and die, which destiny doesn’t want to happen, so it will reposition Merlin into the position of Arthur’s nearly 24/7 babysitter no matter how many times he escapes it.


	4. 1x04 - The Most Noble of Them All

It had been nearly a week since Arthur first woke to an obnoxiously cheery,

“Rise and shine!”

Arthur groaned and blindly felt around for his extra pillow, smothering it over one ear and turning so his main pillow covered the other.  Though Merlin’s other far too energetic words were successfully muffled, the sudden blinding brightness searing against his closed eyelids could not be muted out by the flimsy protection of cotton and down.  Arthur’s arm was half-pulled back, intent on launching his pillow at the source of his annoyance, when he remembered for the umpteenth time in as many days the only reason his mornings were less peaceful than they’d been before: royal edict.

Arthur dropped the pillow and pushed himself upright, climbing out of bed with much groaning and rubbing of the eyes.

“… Good morning, my lord.” A beat too slow to be a natural turn in conversion, Merlin continued, “… It’s nice out.”

“Oh… er, really?”

“… Yeah… real sunny, sire.”

“Well, um… good.”

Neither having anything else to add, the room fell into stifling silence.

Squinting while his eyes adjusted to the change in lighting, Arthur could see his clothes already laid out for him. Breakfast as well was already on the table and – while not the usual voluminous layout he’d received every day for years – it was decent fare, nothing like the crusty bun and piece of cheese Merlin had served him in his first bout of servitude four months ago or the sorry excuse for soup he’d forced him to drink not three weeks ago.

It would be ridiculous to be disappointed to have a decent breakfast, so Arthur wasn’t disappointed.  There was another word for what he was feeling, and one of the advantages of being a prince was that he didn’t have to think of what it was.  He said there was a more fitting word, so there _was_ a more fitting word, and that was the end of it.

His self-assurances, though, couldn’t block out the sheer wrongness of his recent morning routine.

On the surface, it was similar to that morning of the last day of Merlin’s first round of employment, when he was moderately competent and they hadn’t spent the entire time trying to make each other miserable.  Digging past that first layer, however, revealed the shallow façade for what it was.  The key was not to look at what they were doing, but at what they weren’t doing.

They were behaving perfectly civilly to each other, the picture of politeness so much so that it was difficult to believe just a few weeks before they’d been teasing each other mercilessly.  Now they talked about the sodding _weather_ , of all things.  Merlin’s constant cheeriness lacking its previous thinly veiled sarcasm felt like an itch that had crept beneath his skin and wouldn’t go away, twinging every time he saw that smile so big and unchanging that there was no way it wasn’t fake.  Arthur wore a similar one himself and his facial muscles ached from the effort of keeping it plastered on.

He’d never be able to get through the day like this, so as soon as he was readied for training he set Merlin as many chores as he could think of.  Then they smiled at each other like many of the ‘friends’ Arthur had been assigned when he was younger. At last Merlin disappeared to go do his chores and Arthur let out a deep breath, wiping a hand down his tense face and massaging his cheek muscles, which begged him to never smile again.

Arthur couldn’t take it much longer.  The politeness was killing him.  Even his previous barely-existent servants had been more comfortable to be around than this… this… _niceness_.

But how on earth could he go on insulting Merlin’s intelligence and clumsiness and all his other embarrassing attributes when the only reason he was here was because the king had forced him to be? 

It was tempting to concoct some excuse to fire Merlin again, but he didn’t know how Merlin would react to being unjustly fired twice by the same person.  He probably wouldn’t speak to Arthur ever again.

Not that they were really speaking to each other now, beyond endless rounds of “How are you?” and “Looks like rain.”

Maybe he was overthinking this.  It couldn’t possibly be so terrible to be Arthur’s servant, could it?

But then why had he turned it down when Arthur offered him the job?

But he hadn’t refused it when Uther asked.

Why on earth would he say no to the man who’d ordered his death the last time they’d spoken?  Even Merlin wasn’t that much of an idiot.

Of course most people would say that refusing the prince was an equally stupid move.  Of course, most people would _also_ say getting in a mace-fight with the prince even after learning his identity was an even stupider move, so maybe Merlin for some reason figured he could get away with it with Arthur.  He always said whatever he thought about Arthur to his face; there were no honey-coated words pouring forth from Merlin’s lips.

Except not lately.  All week he hadn’t offered a single sarcastic comment or even added an insolent ring to the oft said words: _Yes, my Lord_.  He was behaving disturbingly un-Merlin-like, as if he was just another servant Morgana had drudged up from somewhere for him.  As if he hadn’t drunk poison for Arthur, as if Arthur had risked his life and father’s wrath to get him a cure.  As if they hadn’t fought an afanc together.  As if the first time they’d met he hadn’t tried to punch Arthur in the face.

Was he mad at Arthur for letting his father rehire him?

Was he going to quit, damn the consequences of spitting in the face of the king’s generosity?

Was he going to ride it out, letting this awful week span into more weeks and months and years, for God knew how long?

What if they spent the rest of their lives living like this, in this awful amiability that was trying too hard to be amiable to truly be amiable?

There were only two options that Arthur could see.  He could leave matters as they were and spend the rest of his life second guessing what lay behind Merlin’s too competently completed chores and too unwaveringly happy smile, all the while acting like his personal shadow was a political visitor he had to be painfully careful not to offend, doing so for every waking moment of the day he couldn’t fill with pointless chores, no matter that he already felt the strain of faking niceties slowly sapping him of life.  Or, alternatively, he could pull Merlin aside to have a heart-to-heart about their _feelings_.

The choice didn’t even bear thinking about.

He’d better think of more chores to keep Merlin occupied.

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A week ago Merlin would have laughed in the face of anyone who told him that he’d soon be glad to be ordered to muck out horses.  Now, after rounding the corner he dropped the charade he’d painstakingly been upholding, his shoulders sank in relief to hear those words.

Part of the reason he didn’t mind was that the chore didn’t take as long now he knew Tyr Sewart, who was more than happy to lend a helping hand whenever he saw Merlin walk through the door.  Having another, more experienced set of hands help out made it go much more quickly.  That being said, it was still a smelly and unpleasant chore, just less time-consuming than it had been before.

So the real reason he was relieved to be shoveling horse waste was simply that it got him away from Arthur.

Arthur was acting nice to him.  Words could not describe how utterly wrong that was.  It was as if he’d seen a bloodthirsty killer rabbit or a domesticated, cuddly bear.  Like the sky being green or a singing rock, Arthur and overt niceness just didn’t go.  It was bizarre that something that should be pleasant was instead just discomforting; Arthur’s insults were a thousand times more natural and inviting than “… Nice weather today…. Er… How are you?”

Merlin dragged all of Arthur’s stuff he’d been assigned to clean back to his room, enchanting it spotless in about twenty seconds.  Then he pulled out a book and flopped on his bed for what he would argue was a well-deserved rest; he needed to recuperate his energy so that when the time came for him to return to Arthur’s side he’d have enough strength to fall back into the role of a cheerful servant.

A week ago, after Uther walked away having turned Merlin’s world on its head once again, Arthur had just sort of stood outside Gaius’ chambers, visibly stunned.  It hadn’t helped that Merlin’s emotional state was too tumulus for words.  What on earth was he supposed to say to Arthur, when neither of them wanted this turn of events?

He wasn’t sure what Arthur had been doing outside Gaius’ chambers.  Perhaps he had a medical complaint, or perhaps he wanted to check on Merlin - under some other pretext of course.  Merlin would never know, because while he was just sitting there in stupefied denial, trying to envision a way out of the mess he’d been thrust into yet again, Arthur had come to his senses.  He’d given a jerky nod, and an awkward _well… I guess I’ll see you tomorrow_ , and then stiffly walked away without whatever he’d come for.

He’d seemed in a hurry to go, and the next morning Merlin found out why.  While gathering Arthur’s breakfast alongside Gwen, he found out that Arthur had spent the remainder of the previous day arguing with his father, trying to get him to revoke the ‘reward’.

So he couldn’t blame Arthur for his situation.  Arthur was as forced into this as he was.  Not to mention Arthur had risked his life on a dangerous quest to bring Merlin a cure, and gotten only an insider’s perspective on the dungeons as his reward.  He didn’t want Arthur to be peeved at losing a competent servant and gaining just a Merlin in his stead, so he resolved to be nice to Arthur and try his best in the job this time.

Now almost a week had passed, and he was sick of being nice to Arthur and cheerfully and silently mopping his floor and cleaning his boots and sallying off to muck out his horses, but with Arthur being nice to him it would feel strange to out of nowhere insult him.  He couldn’t tell what Arthur was thinking.  Did he feel he owed Merlin for warning him about the poison?  Did he blame Merlin for his stint in the dungeons?  Was he annoyed that Merlin the amateur had replaced his more experienced servant?  Was this how Arthur treated his servants these days, and now that Merlin was his servant once again they had to fall into a relationship of distancing politeness rather than the mocking-centered one they’d had before?  Was there some kind of law that said _thou shalt keep thy distance from thy servants_? 

Or did Arthur just feel awkward having Merlin back against his will, and was trying to hide his discomfort under uncharacteristic politeness?

Ideally, he’d talk this over with Arthur and iron out all the uncertainties hanging unsaid between them.  Unfortunately, this was Arthur.  Not two days ago Merlin had barely gotten _we need to talk_ out of his mouth before he was hastily ordered to go muck out Arthur’s horses… which he’d just done two hours before.  He’d tried since then several other times, each time being thwarted by Arthur’s sudden desire to give him a chore that made talking impossible.

Merlin shifted restlessly, only two chapters in and already tired of his book.  For a change of pace, he took the satchel out from Gaius’ store cupboard and left to gather herbs, one of his more soothing chores.

Picking herbs always brought to mind sunlight caught in the leaves of the trees in the Forest of Ascetir, and the swish of his mother’s skirts against the foliage.  In those precious childhood days of trailing after her with the herb satchel, everything had seemed right in the world.  Out in the forest with just him and his mother he could forget the uncomfortable stares and whispering that came to abrupt stops whenever he looked over, and the taunting of the children his age whom the adults weren’t as careful to hide their gossiping from.  Hidden in the trees, it didn’t matter whether he performed small acts of magic.  His mother would smile and tell him that he was just like his father, then ask him for the name of the herb she was picking, making Merlin feel smart and important for being able to answer even though he knew she knew all the names herself; she was the one who’d taught him, after all.

In Camelot, trips into the forest to pick herbs were still peaceful.  Though his mother wasn’t there and he couldn’t use magic in case an ill-timed patrol happened by, merely being among the trees and wind, far from other human souls, was like coming home.

Gaius used many more varieties of herbs than his mother, but by this point with only a passing glance Merlin could successfully identify even the ones that didn’t grow in Ealdor’s harsher climate.  Not needing to devote much attention to the task, therefore, he let his mind wander.

For a while he entertained himself with devising ridiculous ways to force Arthur to talk.  He could hang him from the ceiling by his ankles until he conceded they needed to talk, or spike his evening drink until he was so loopy he couldn’t stop talking, or hide all his clothes and refuse to fetch them until they’d worked through their problems, or invent a deadly illness whose only cure was confiding your worries to someone.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of any that weren’t liable to land him in the stocks or the dungeons (or the stocks _and_ the dungeons, in true tribute to their first meeting) and Merlin wasn’t quite desperate enough to set himself up in that way.

Tired of the viciously awful niceties awaiting him within the city walls, Merlin forced all thoughts of them aside.  The trouble was that the void was then filled with another unsolved problem: his dream. 

Arthur, normally not prone to modest silence, was curiously cagey when asked about his quest to the Caves of Balor. So Merlin had to hear most of the details from Gwen, who’d heard them from Morgana, who’d wrestled them from Arthur.  It was eerie how his dream fell perfectly in line with the admittedly third-hand account.  At this point Gaius had told him to give up looking in the science books for his answer, and now the old physician was puzzling over the significance of Merlin’s vision.

Merlin was more reluctant to mull it over, because he didn’t like the direction it had been going in.  He and Arthur had been threads on a great unfinished tapestry.  Not only had they been threads, but they’d been woven together like a rope, from their beginnings all the way through to the inky blueprint.  They’d been connected – the unknown light spell he’d used across leagues to save Arthur was undeniable proof of that.

More than just that though, looking back it seemed a fantastic coincidence that on his second day in the city he, a foreign peasant, had integrated himself with the prince of the land – not well, but memorably, at least.  A couple of days later he’d been forced into the position of the older boy’s personal shadow, and though he’d escaped that, it hadn’t ended his contact with Arthur.  With the amount of injuries Arthur got on patrols he saw him daily on his medicinal rounds, and now only four months later he was again forced into shadowing Arthur.  The chances of all this happening seemed so astronomically low that Merlin couldn’t help but hold it as another form of proof of the veracity of his vision.

Two strands of a rope, indeed.  It was as if no matter what they did, he and Arthur were stuck together by forces outside of their control, whether it be from crossing each other’s paths in the street, patrol wounds after patrol wound, or the king’s decree.

Why Arthur, of all people?  They had absolutely nothing in common.  Not their class, not their interests, not their upbringings, not their political stances, not their world views, not their bloodlines, not even their nationalities.  They were polar opposites in almost every way imaginable. He’d heard that opposites attract, but nothing said anything about it being between a magic-hating prince and a magical commoner. 

Merlin had nothing against Arthur, aside from… alright, that was a lie, he had a ton of things against Arthur; just most were relatively trivial.  But before they’d been thrust back together and Merlin had had a strange vision, he’d considered them to have something like a taunt-based friendship.  Now, however, he couldn’t see how they could possibly be expected by fate or whatever to work together for the rest of the foreseeable future.  The most likely outcome of _that_ was Merlin’s own end coming early in a grisly manner.

It had been more than five months since he’d come to Camelot, and since then he’d come dangerously close to forgetting that the son of Uther Pendragon would not suffer a sorcerer to live within his borders, much less consider him a friend.  It had taken poisoning himself for the prince and a dying vision to make him see how dangerously close they’d gotten.

It was one thing to pull Arthur out of the way of a dagger.  It was one thing to use magic in a large crowd to even the odds of his death match.  It was one thing to use magic in front of him and on him after he’d taken a blow to the head.  Those things were all risks, yes, but they were risks he’d take for anyone.  If it had been Gwen or even Morgana, whom he wasn’t as close to, he would have still done those things.  He _had_ done similar things for Gwen’s father and the tomato girl, neither of whom he was especially close to.

Somehow, though, in their months of annoying each other Arthur had crossed some line where Merlin would drink poison in his place, if push came to shove.  There was no good reason for it.  Merlin had no idea what had possessed him to do it.  In that moment, though, Arthur dying had seemed such a great travesty that he’d taken his place. 

Even as he lay dying himself, he’d abandoned his attempts to find a way out of the darkness in favour of saving Arthur.  Gaius and Gwen’s voices had been with him in the void the whole time and he hadn’t recognised them, but a bit of string had been all he needed to not only remember Arthur when he couldn’t even remember himself, but to see from afar the danger stalking Arthur.  In that moment, when he’d forgotten all else, saving Arthur had felt paramount to survival itself; it was instinct, pure and simple, even more overpoweringly so than his bid to escape the darkness.

That wasn’t a usual level of closeness, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of a dual-stranded string whose implications he didn’t wholly understand but was wary of.

So perhaps, Merlin couldn’t stop himself from thinking no matter how much he didn’t want to, it wasn’t for Arthur’s sake after all that he’d started the civil act they were caught in.  Acting polite meant throwing distance between them and, with his worries that unwittingly he’d become dangerously close to the son of his father’s pursuer, distance had seemed appealing.  It still seemed appealing, but not like this.

He wanted two things that he couldn’t have together: he wanted to be a safe distance from the prince of Camelot so he wouldn’t be roped into some great design that he couldn’t see a happy ending to, and he wanted to keep the quip-filled friendship he’d so easily slid into with a boy his age named Arthur.

The world, however, did not just conveniently halt for him to work through his problems. There was a great angry cry of some animal from behind him, bringing him crashing back to the plane of reality.

He pushed himself up from where he was crouching and spun around. Slack jawed, he stared at the great beast glaring at him.  It looked like nothing he’d ever heard of; the head and wings of a raptor on the body of a large feline.  It would surely be listed within one of the pages of the strictly regulated books that Gaius was only allowed to keep out of an old friendship with the king, listed in the section on magical monsters.

Thought was pushed out of Merlin’s head by the pounding of the blood ringing in his ears, screaming at him to _act_ but drowning out all instructions on how to go about doing so.  There were spells to defeat monsters like this, he’d been studying them for months, but as the beast charged him he could only recall his most basic instincts: he ran.

He hadn’t gotten very far before he tripped. He squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for a messy, bloody end.  The monster screeched above him, but its predatory cries were broken up by unexpected noises: the clang of metal upon a hard surface and a male grunt.  Merlin opened his eyes, and there was a stranger, come out of nowhere to fend off the monster.

He drove it back and hauled Merlin to his feet, and together they ran from the foul beast.  Jumping over a great tree trunk, the stranger yanked Merlin down to the ground.  Panic blinded him and every throb of his racing heart cried out for him to break free and continue running, but the other man jerked him back.

The beast cleared the giant log in its charge and took to the air.  Merlin watched it fly away, his pulse finally beginning to slow as the danger passed and his breathing evened. 

He looked over to his rescuer in gratitude, thanking him and gaining the man’s name as they shook hands.

“Lancelot.”

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There was something about Merlin, though Lancelot couldn’t work out what it was.

At first glance he had looked like a regular commoner in a bind: no way to defend himself and in desperate need of help.  And he had been: Lancelot didn’t doubt that Merlin been in danger of imminent death.  But in the days he spent as his house guest, Lancelot was coming to the ever growing conclusion that there was more to Merlin than met the eye.

First he’d found out that Merlin was a servant who’d spent several months as the Royal Physician’s apprentice.  That was unusual, but it hadn’t been terribly strange.  Then he’d found out that not only was Merlin a servant, he was Prince Arthur’s personal servant.  That was certainly a more unique position, but logically someone had to fill it.  So the only thing strange was that Lancelot had coincidentally saved the life of the servant of the man he wanted to train him in knighthood.  But coincidences did happen, so he could put it aside.

Then Merlin had produced a seal of nobility for the nonexistent Lancelot, fifth son of Lord Eldred of Northumbria, beautifully forged down to the miniscule swirls of a scribe’s writing which differed markedly from the thin plain scratch Merlin wrote in.  It was at that point that Lancelot truly began to question what lay behind the veneer of good-natured cheer and friendliness that Merlin emanated.

Possibly Merlin had a friend who was good at forging who’d volunteered to help with the papers, much as his lovely friend Guinevere kindly had with the tailoring.  Or possibly he’d bribed a crooked official for it.  Indeed, normally Lancelot would think it far more probable that the servant himself wasn’t the hand behind the forgery.  However, Merlin’s face when he held up the parchment hadn’t just been smug at his planning, there had been a measure of personal pride in there which made Lancelot hesitate; Merlin looked far too pleased with that piece of parchment to have gotten it from someone else.

When Lancelot had handed the document to the prince himself, the man hadn’t noticed anything strange about it, despite doubtlessly seeing dozens upon dozens of these seals and therefore knowing exactly what they looked like.  So it wasn’t as if Merlin had just produced a mediocre copy, which made Lancelot wonder.  And once he began wondering, he started taking notice.

Merlin stood at the very heart of Camelot, wandering between the spheres of the highest of the high and the regular townsfolk as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  He looked completely at ease in the forest, the lower town, and the castle, as if the entire city and surrounding countryside was his home, though he’d told Lancelot he had only come to Camelot mere months before.  But in this brief stretch of time he appeared to have integrated himself to the entire city; people of all ages and classes waved hello to him as he passed, and Merlin seemed oblivious to how unusual it was for a man to be this well-known in a city the size of Camelot, let alone this well-liked.

There was also Merlin’s insistence that Lancelot deserved a chance to prove himself.  It would be easy to write it off as a commoner cheering on another commoner or the rescued wanting to repay the rescuer, and those things undoubtedly played their part.  But it went deeper too, Lancelot could sense it.  There had been a look in Merlin’s eyes when Gaius brusquely broke the news that commoners couldn’t be knights that bore far too much understanding, like he was well acquainted with similar pain.  Lancelot doubted Merlin had ever had a burning desire for knighthood, yet there was something he wanted more than anything but couldn’t have.  What that thing was, Lancelot could only guess at.

Then, aside from Merlin’s easy skill at producing expertly forged documents from who-knew-where, he was good at getting through menial labour at an inhuman speed.  Despite this, Lancelot rarely saw him actually doing any chores, and the few times he did Merlin moved as slow as a snail.  But if Lancelot left and came back, even only several minutes later, then the chores would all be complete and Merlin would be lazing about reading through a book.

So there was definitely something about Merlin.  He was more than he seemed – or, rather, more than he wanted to seem. 

But Lancelot held his tongue and stayed his curiosity.  He had only that mysteriously produced seal to think of to ask himself if he really wanted to know the story behind these unexplained aspects of Merlin.  And the answer was always a resounding no: Merlin had given him a chance to prove himself, and he wouldn’t use that as an opportunity to pry into matters that didn’t concern him.

For the most part his knight training occupied his thoughts, and if not that, then the beast still roaming around attacking innocent people did.  But occasionally his mind would drift to his new friend, and he’d wonder.

But not tonight.  He’d finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of being a knight of Camelot, and in the evening there would be an official ceremony and celebration.  Tonight, he felt he could fight a thousand dragons and come out without a scratch.  He knew he’d have to come crashing back down to earth sometime, but for this one night he was determined to hang up all his concerns and uncertainties and just enjoy the elation of a dream coming true.

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When they came for Lancelot, it was like watching Gwen be manhandled through the castle halls all over again.

Lancelot didn’t call out for help as she had, but he’d looked back at Merlin not once, but twice as he was dragged off.  Sick realisation and guilt churning in his stomach, Merlin followed at a distance all the way until the great oaken doors of the council chambers shut in his face and the two guards standing outside blocked his way.  He tried not to assume the worst, but it was so hard when all the signs screamed one thing: their bluff had been called.

When at last the doors opened again Lancelot was still being led by guards on either side, and they turned in an opposite direction than Gaius’ chambers, or the practice courts, or anywhere else that a newly instated knight would go to.  The witnesses to the trial out filed out, among them an old, bearded man in the long robes of an academic.  With a sinking heart Merlin recognised Geoffrey of Monmouth, keeper of records, court historian, and – worst of all – court genealogist; if there was a man in Camelot able to see through the forged seal, it would be him.

Merlin didn’t waste any more time; he turned in the same direction the guards who’d taken Lancelot away had: towards the dungeons.

At the bottom of the steps there were two guards stationed, and he was stopped by one of them.  He was an older man with an ale belly who looked to be in his mid-forties, and when Merlin tried to walk past he lowered his pike to block the entrance.

“Halt!  Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’d like to see Lancelot, please,” Merlin said.  Normally prisoners were allowed guests, under supervision of course, but for commoners that generally depended on the disposition of the guard and his mood; whether he fancied going for a walk, or whether he wanted to remain seated. 

Given that this guard hadn’t even stood from his seat at the guard’s table, Merlin was not overly optimistic that he was looking for light exercise and a change of scenery.

Indeed, the middle-aged guard started to refuse, but his younger cohort placed down his goblet and stood.  “You’re Merlin, Gaius’ apprentice, correct?”

Merlin wondered whether or not that was strictly true anymore – he still did chores for Gaius and was assigned books to read, but as he now had a job he didn’t have the time to devote towards studying that a proper apprentice would.  Still, this was neither the time nor place to get into that, so he nodded.

The guard picked up his pike from where it’d been leaning against the table, holding it in his left hand like a walking stick.  His right he held out to Merlin, “We’ve met before but I don’t believe I properly introduced myself.  I’m Sir Leon of Penarth.”

Merlin shook his hand, picking through his memory.  There were a lot of knights and they all kind of blurred in his memory, but he did feel like he recognised this one.  “Right.  Er, I’m Merlin, but I guess you already know that.”

Leon motioned him forwards, and the older guard slowly lowered his pike, looking as though he wasn’t sure he should be unblocking the entrance.  Merlin started forwards, feeling like he was testing the ground as he would ice to see whether it would hold his weight.  When no one stopped him, he relaxed slightly.

From behind him he could hear footsteps, and glancing over his shoulder he could see Sir Leon accompanying him.  Feeling as though he should say something, Merlin said, “Thanks.  For letting me through, I mean.”

Leon shrugged lightly.  “There’s no harm done letting trustworthy people visit the cells.  And I know you’re a good person; I haven’t forgotten what you did for Gwen.”

It took Merlin a good minute to work out what he was talking about, and this must have shown on his face because Leon clarified, “The incident with the afanc.  You cleared her name.”

Strange, that a knight would remember that; it had been several months after all. Perhaps Merlin would expect him to remember Arthur and Morgana’s involvement, but certainly not his.  It was also surprising that he remembered the name of the serving woman falsely accused of witchcraft, or that her sentence had left any kind of lasting impact on him.

Then something else struck him: Gwen, Leon had said, not Guinevere.  Gwen.  “Do you know her?”

“All her life - her mother served my mother.”  Leon said, smiling with the clumsy air of one trying to lighten the mood but not accustomed to doing so. Merlin couldn’t bring himself to reciprocate, and they fell into silence, their footsteps echoing through these empty cells where the very air that tasted of decay. 

Lancelot was down here, here in this forsaken realm, and it was all his fault. Just like with Gwen.  He had cleared Gwen’s name, but then Gwen hadn’t done anything.  At Merlin’s behest Lancelot had committed a crime – albeit a crime that shouldn’t be a crime, but something that had nonetheless gotten him imprisoned. 

Leon cleared his throat, pulling Merlin from his bleak thoughts. “I’ll stay here to give you some privacy.  Lancelot is just down that way, keep going and you can’t miss him.”

Merlin thanked him again and kept walking, until he came to the one occupied cell.  There weren’t usually prisoners in the dungeons for any lengthy period: why waste food on criminals, after all, when it was so much easier to sentence them to hard manual labour or death?

Merlin’s throat went dry at the sight of Lancelot behind bars.  Their conversation didn’t last long.  Merlin wished he could just apologise, but Lancelot wouldn’t accept it; he was determined to shoulder this alone, and told Merlin he didn’t blame him.

Merlin was struck by Lancelot’s character; surely, as the forger of the seal and the mastermind behind the deception, Merlin was the one who rightfully should be behind bars. He owed Lancelot so much, and his attempt to pay him back had only deepened the debt.  Lancelot could have told the king that Merlin persuaded him to do it, perhaps bargained for a lighter sentence by giving the name of the forger, but as Merlin was still on the other side of the bars it was obvious he hadn’t.

Lancelot might not blame him, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t his fault. 

Returning to Gaius’ chambers, he remembered Gaius’ reprimand the night before about how Merlin had played God. In no mood for another lecture, Merlin mumbled, “Whatever you do, don’t say ‘I told you so.’”

“I have no wish to gloat, Merlin.  What’s done is done.”  Gaius slid one of his books over, tilting it to face Merlin. “… Here.  Come and take a look at this.”

The open page caught his breath.  On it under the heading _griffin_ was a stylised drawing of the monster terrorising the countryside.  Lancelot’s arrest had pushed the creature from Merlin’s mind, but he gratefully seized on it again.  Helpless he may be against the king’s judgement, but as a sorcerer mythical beasts were within his area of expertise.

The resounding, urgent peals of the gong interrupted them.  Peering out the window, Merlin could see a dark shadow swooping into the courtyard below.  He ran out the door.

However, by the time he arrived, the monster was already flying away, leaving Arthur staring after it in front of a line of knights.  Uther was unimpressed with this failure, and even more unimpressed with Gaius’ warnings that griffins could only be killed by magic, curtly ordering his son to slay the beast as soon as possible.

So it was then down to Merlin and Gaius to, within a two hour time window, come up with a way to kill a griffin without Merlin losing his head in the process.  The first part of the problem was easy: the weapon strengthening spell Merlin had learned during his months of study should do the trick.  The second part, however, was more difficult; strong magic’s tendency towards bright lights and general flashiness came with the unfortunate downside of Merlin’s head on a chopping block.

Merlin wasted about ten minutes flipping through his book for a powerful but imperceptible spell to defeat griffins, before changing tactics.  “Gaius!  Do you have all the ingredients for the aging potion in stock?”

To Merlin’s delight, Gaius did.  They worked on it like men possessed, as even with two of them it was cutting it rather fine to prepare it so quickly.  They were about three-quarters of the way through when the door burst open.  Merlin hurriedly closed his spellbook and stashed it under several other more legal books.

It was Gwen, and she wasted no time in blurting out, “Merlin! Lancelot's riding out to kill the griffin!”

Merlin almost wasn’t sure he’d processed that right.  For starters, last he saw Lancelot was locked in the dungeons beneath the castle.  Also, where would he get a horse and weapons to kill the griffin with?  And how did Gwen know this, anyways?  But he shoved these questions aside and took Gwen’s word for it, racing out the door.  Gaius called out after him, no doubt alarmed that Merlin left sans potion, but they didn’t have time for that now.

Running through the courtyard, Merlin realised with a sinking heart that it was later than he’d thought.  He’d assumed Arthur would send for him before riding out to help him get ready, but it would appear he’d found someone else to saddle his horse and prepare his weapons for him.  Panic drove him ever faster, determined to catch up with Lancelot before the other man set out.

Inwardly, Merlin swore to himself that if he got out of this with his head still attached to his shoulders, he’d make a galleon of that potion and store flask upon flask of it under his floorboard, keeping one on his person at all times.  The next time an emergency came up, he was going to stride out in full-out glory as an open sorcerer, without all this last minute scrambling and not getting the damn thing finished in time.

For today, he’d just have to hope no one would question why the weapon that slayed the griffin erupted in mysterious blue flames.

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Lancelot at first refused to let Merlin tag along with him. 

When they’d first met Merlin had been nearly killed by that monster, and Lancelot couldn’t afford to cover for him again while simultaneously trying to slay the beast.  However, Merlin was obstinate that he not be left behind and the fire in his eyes told Lancelot that this time, there was something different.

Merlin had many mysteries surrounding him, and Lancelot couldn’t help but remember the record keeper calling the forgery “flawless,” only being able to see through it because of the lack of any other records, rather than any fault found in the seal itself.  There was more to Merlin than met the eye, this was something he’d acknowledged.  Lancelot wouldn’t have pegged him for being of use in defeating a magical monster, but then he wouldn’t have pegged him as being of use in forging faultless credentials.  He’d just have to trust that Merlin had more tricks up his sleeve than he let on.

So as he was riding through the darkened woods surrounding the city, Merlin was riding right behind him.  Off the marked trail, somewhere shrouded in the moonlit mist came the sounds of the griffin’s shrill roars, intermingled with men yelling in a mix of terror and pain.  They turned their mounts to follow.

All was silent.  The dim glow of the moon was enough to make out the vibrant capes against grass, pooled around still bodies of knights like they were lying in a puddle of blood.  Merlin quickly identified Arthur among them, letting out a shaky sigh of relief as he felt his pulse.

The creature’s cries broke the silence, echoing in shrill menace from afar, hidden by the misty cloak of the night.

The sheer force behind a charge wound was Lancelot’s only hope.  If this failed he would die.  If this succeeded, the beast might still mortally wound him; with only a lance for a weapon, he was in trouble if it came to close combat.  But if he did nothing then there would be much death, starting with the wounded knights lying here and continuing as the beast roamed free to terrorise the city.  He could not stand uselessly aside again, while innocent people died.

When the raiders destroyed his village, he’d been but a child, unable to stop them.  He’d spent the last fifteen years training to never be helpless in the face of such wanton destruction again.  This time, he’d meet death head on, riding out to it willingly instead of crouching terrified inside a barrel as everyone he knew was cut down around him.

Lancelot remounted his horse.  In one hand he held the lance, with the other the reigns.  The griffin scratched at the ground and charged him. He nudged his mount into a gallop.  He braced his upper body to inflict maximum damage upon impact. He passed Merlin in a blur, barely able to make out the strange words he was muttering over the beating of his horse’s hooves. 

A high crackling hiss, like a fire struggling to lick at damp leaves, flared beside him.  Tongues of blue flame leapt from the tip of his lance to his arm, and only years of rigorous training stopped Lancelot from dropping the burning weapon.

The otherworldly fire did not scald, as he thought it would.  Instead the chainmail encasing his arm felt as though it had been dipped in icy water.  Beneath his gloved touch, the polearm shifted, hardening like the cold fire was refining it.

His horse thundered onward, and everything felt perfectly aligned.  Lancelot felt lightheaded; he’d forgotten to breathe. His lance connected, the griffin fell.

It’s fall was loud, full of dying squawks and the resounding thud of a large body hitting the ground at great speed and flipping several times.  The glow faded, and his horse slowed enough that he could turn around, looking at the dead monster.

From behind it, Merlin was looking as Lancelot had felt when the prince informed him he’d be knighted.

Lancelot’s breathing had yet to even out, and he looked on, his mind fuzzy from lack of air, but even then several things were clear to him.

The griffin was dead.

They said the griffin could only be killed by magic.

Just before his lance had burst into magical fire, Merlin had muttered something which had not been in the Common Tongue.

Merlin looked extraordinarily pleased with himself, for someone who ostensibly had done nothing.

That flawless seal being made by magic would make a lot of sense.

As he was thinking these things, fragmented but when pieced together explained so much, Arthur awoke.  Merlin, for someone who had been so eager to come after him, was extraordinarily quick to run away now that Uther’s son was regaining consciousness, cementing whatever doubts Lancelot may have had.

Thankfully for Merlin, Arthur had eyes only for what lay in the opposite direction.  “You did it,” he said, the words falling dumbstruck from his lips like he couldn’t quite believe them.  More forcefully, he repeated, “You killed it, Lancelot!”

His instincts screamed to correct the prince, to not claim credit he hadn’t earned.  The consequences of lying still felt physical to him; he could still smell the stench of dungeon rot lingering on his skin, still feel Uther’s distaining gaze sizing him up as unworthy filth to be tossed out like a cankerous plant that ruined the garden.

Lancelot remained silent for the second time at Merlin’s behest.  As he did so, it occurred to him that this was the reason why Merlin, who looked like such an honest boy, had been so blasé about propagating a falsehood; it was something he did on a daily basis, as natural to him as the instinct for survival, and as necessary as breathing.

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After stopping to inform Gaius of his success, Merlin headed over to the council chamber, thinking that that was probably where Arthur would be and that after he was done with his report he’d need Merlin to help him out of his armour.  He was surprised to see Lancelot walk out the room – in his place, Merlin would be trying to hightail it as far away from Camelot as possible.

The doors shut behind him to muffle out all sound, but not before Merlin heard the king yell, “You had no right to-!”

Walking up to Lancelot, Merlin asked, “What are they doing?”

“Deciding my fate,” said Lancelot, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.  “Arthur released me from the dungeons without the king’s permission, and now Uther knows he’s not pleased.”

Merlin wondered at the shock he felt at this; Arthur had gone against his father’s wishes for Merlin a week ago, it shouldn’t be shocking that he’d done it again for Lancelot.  But it was, because – regardless of circumstances – Lancelot _had_ lied to him and broken the Code that Arthur held such store by.  When Merlin had first mentioned Lancelot to Arthur he had only considered training him when Merlin lied that, yes, of course he was a noble, and he knew from personal experience that Arthur didn’t think much of commoners. 

Merlin had saved Arthur from dying of poison; Arthur could have just felt obligated to repay the favour, against his father’s orders or not. But here, Arthur owed Lancelot nothing.  Yet he’d still freed him.

Merlin suddenly remembered Arthur ordering the guards to let him go after their disastrous mace-fight, and how he’d trusted him about Valiant’s dishonesty. There were such long lulls in between Arthur’s acts of true nobility that it was easy to forget that somewhere, very deep down, Arthur had integrity.

But, on occasion, it shone through.  And whenever it did, it gave Merlin hope a sense of hope for the future of this country.

“They'll restore your knighthood, of course they will.” He wouldn’t have been comfortable trying to convince them both of this before, but now it seemed an actual possibility.  Arthur had seen the justice in releasing him, surely he would also see the justice in reinstating him, given everything?  “You killed the griffin.”

“But I didn’t kill the griffin.” Lancelot’s eyes flickered over to the guards standing outside the council chamber, and he casually strode away.  Once they were far enough to not be overheard, Lancelot said in a low voice, “You did.”

Merlin’s first instinct was to deny it. But Lancelot repeated part of the spell, batting away all his unprepared, poor excuses (just because Lancelot had seen magic defeat the griffin and Merlin was the only other conscious person present didn’t necessarily mean that Merlin had cast the spell, right?  Maybe all spears caught magically on fire within the presence of a griffin.).

Panic thudded frantically through Merlin’s veins, screaming at him to flee or fight. He cursed whoever designed transportation magic – what did it have so many limitations on it for, anyway?

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.” Lancelot was quick to reassure him. “But I cannot take credit for what I did not do.  There’ll be no more lies, no more deceit.”

And to Merlin’s great amazement, and no small amount of fear, Lancelot turned and strode through the great oaken doors of the council chamber.  The king and prince’s heated argument abruptly cut off as both turned to stare at him.  Uther looked like a smelly hog had burst into his halls and made a mess on his floors.  Arthur merely appeared surprised at the interruption, but he was regarding Lancelot without the dismissal that Arthur generally had for the lower class; more how he would look at a fellow knight, especially one who’d just slayed a monster and saved the city.

Lancelot’s farewells appeared to dismay Arthur, who protested that he’d already proven himself. But Lancelot would not be dissuaded.  The guards looked at each other as he passed, but let him go.  Even Uther didn’t make a move to stop him. Arthur watched him go for a long moment, then abruptly turned away from his father and stormed out, tight-faced and silent. 

Merlin hesitated, looking between Arthur and Lancelot.  Lancelot turned the corner in the direction of Gaius’ chambers, rather than the outer courtyard, and it occurred to Merlin that he wouldn’t be setting out at this hour for a long journey.  He had until the next day to say his farewells to Lancelot. His mind made up, Merlin jogged to catch up to the prince.

Arthur didn’t speak until they reached his chambers, and even then it was just a curt order to help him out of his armour.  It was late; Arthur would go straight to bed, so he had to get answers from him before then.  Only, now he was face to face with the prince, he wasn’t sure how to go about doing so.  He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to ask.

But all too soon Arthur was out of all his armour and moving towards his dressing screen. Merlin steeled himself. He couldn’t procrastinate, or the burning need driving him, the need to _know_ , would dim. Any answer was better than sheer guesswork at what went on in Arthur’s mind.

“Why did you do it?” Arthur paused just before his screen, turning to him cocking his head in silent question.  Merlin clarified, “Release Lancelot, I mean.  You must have known your father would be furious, and he lied to you.”

Only then did it occur to Merlin that Arthur probably remembered that Merlin was the one who first claimed Lancelot was a noble.  His need for answers flickered; what if Arthur worked out that the deception was all Merlin’s idea? 

Fortunately Arthur didn’t look like he was angry with Merlin – it either hadn’t occurred to him that Merlin was in on the deception, or he didn’t care.  The first seemed more likely, but the latter no longer seemed an impossibility.  After all, it was beginning to feel like every time Merlin thought he’d nailed Arthur’s personality, he’d do something that threw off all of Merlin’s assumptions, right before resuming his daily life as a royal schmuck.

“What is there to say about it?” Arthur asked, looking uncomfortable.  This probably fell too close to talking about _feelings_ for him.  “Lancelot is one of the first knights in a long while I can instantly say I’m proud to have trained, and who his parents are doesn’t change that.  He lied, but he had to lie.  If the Code says Lancelot can’t be a knight, then the fault is with the Code, not Lancelot himself.”

One word struck Merlin above all others: _Lancelot is one of the best knights_.  _Is._ Not _was. Is._ Arthur still considered Lancelot a knight, even if Uther had stripped him of the rank.

Merlin had half expected him to try and brush it aside, or else justify his actions by twisting Uther’s teachings to fit them.  Instead, Arthur freely confirmed that his regard for Lancelot had not been tarnished by the necessary deception and he had, indeed, freed Lancelot because he saw the injustice in his sentence.  And Arthur, for all his faults, was not a man to let injustice stand once he’d recognised it.

Arthur’s eyes flickered over to his changing screen and back, and he stiffly moved behind it, throwing his clothes over the top and calling out orders to ready his bed with the voice of a man trying to pretend an awkward conversation hadn’t taken place.

Merlin automatically went about readying Arthur’s room, his mind leagues away, trapped someplace between a never-ending tapestry and a prison cell with no prisoner.

Merlin hadn’t realised that Arthur’s views on right and wrong were not cemented in place.  He’d considered them to be something like a fortress, built up by his father and manned by Arthur, where any assault would be met by impenetrable rock.  What he hadn’t thought of, though, was that no matter how strong the fortress, it must have a gate.

He’d always felt a difference between Arthur and Uther; that Arthur was more than just a less hardened, younger version of his father.  He hadn’t had a word for it before, but now he did: open-mindedness.  If all fortresses had gates, then Uther’s had been bolted shut years before.  But Arthur was not as set in his ways; his worldview was still being formed.

Lancelot had gotten Arthur to admit that the Code, the cornerstone of all of Arthur’s moral judgement, was not always right.  Even in the face of his father’s displeasure, Arthur had not yielded his new beliefs.

For the first time, Merlin could see why the world at large seemed determined to stick him and Arthur together, and could believe that maybe the two threads on the tapestry meant more than a dying sorcerer’s subconscious mind rearing its strange head.

If he stayed alert to opportunities and was blessed by luck, he might be able to change Arthur’s views on the inherent wickedness of magic as Lancelot had his views on the worthiness of commoners.

If Arthur could be convinced to accept magic, when the time came for him to be king Camelot could at last move out from the shadow the Purge had thrown on the lives of people like Merlin.  He had until then to convince Arthur that his father was wrong; it would be beyond difficult, but Lancelot had proven it wasn’t impossible.

“For tomorrow,” Arthur drawled, wandering out from behind the screen in his night clothes.  “I need you to clean my armour, sharpen my sword, wash my tunic, and polish my boots.”

Only Arthur would be able to put a damper on Merlin’s great resolve and optimism by giving him more work to do when the moon was already high in the sky. Merlin rolled his eyes and muttered, “Yes, _my Lord_.”

Arthur froze and stared at Merlin incredulously, and Merlin remembered abruptly that they had never figured a way out of the horrid dance of niceties they’d gotten stuck in.  Pinned under Arthur’s disbelieving gaze, Merlin wished he could take back his sarcastic words – they’d just slipped out of him, like they were the most natural thing in the world to say.

Arthur quickly turned his head away, but not before Merlin could see a grin spreading across his face.  Emboldened by this reaction, Merlin ventured more words dripping with insolence that clashed horribly with their objective deference.  “Is there any other way in which I can be of service to you tonight?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied easily, definitely grinning.  He grabbed the socks off his feet and drew his arm back for a throw.  “Here, wash these too.”

Merlin threw his arms up to block his face.  The socks hit them and fell to the ground.  He didn’t react for a second; stunned it had been that easy.  Why on earth had he and Arthur been walking on eggshells around each other, when apparently all they needed was insolent remarks and thrown objects to make amends?

Arthur’s smile faltered when Merlin just stood there.  For an awful second it looked like he was going to apologise, so Merlin dropped to the ground; there was no way they were getting into that again.  He picked one up, recoiling from it, perhaps injecting more disgust than necessary into his tone, “Ugh!  What, did something foul crawl in this to _die_?”

“If you did a better job of washing them then they wouldn’t smell,” Arthur said, sounding too relieved they’d moved past that moment of almost rebounding into politeness to formulate a better retort.

“Maybe if _you_ did a better job of washing your feet, then they wouldn’t get like this.”

“Well _maybe_ if you spent less time griping and more time working, then I’d have clean socks after every training practice and they wouldn’t have _time_ to get like this.”

“How many times a day do you need to change your socks!  Besides, you have loads of unused socks in your drawer - wear those!”

“Those ones are itchy; I want to wear these ones.”

“Oh, I’m sorry the finest in the land aren’t up to your standards, _Sire_.”

“That’s alright, you’re quite forgiven.  Now off you go, there’s armour to clean, a tunic and socks to wash, boots to shine, and you know what?  I think my horses could use an extra rubbing down.”

For all his shining moments of great displays of integrity, Merlin would always soon be reminded why he’d tried to smash Arthur’s nose in on their first encounter.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur, you finally show a glimmer of something worth following. *pats on back* It took four chapters, true, but well done!
> 
> I thought Lancelot was nice but kind of bland up until 3x13… just in time for him to die in 4x02. Then all of the other knights were introduced… and aside from Gwaine and Mordred, Lancelot has the most personality out of the lot. Leon, Elyan, and Percival seemed to have been written with the personality description of: they’re knights. Oh well, more for me to delve into.
> 
> And now the truth behind why I introduced Tyr Seward five seasons too early comes to fruition: I want him to take over Merlin’s main too-public-for-magic chore so Merlin has more time to study. Also, was I the only one taken aback when the show introduced Arthur’s stablehand? Seriously, why would Merlin have to muck out his horse all the time if he had a stablehand? How many other servants are technically assigned to do all the jobs Arthur just dumps on Merlin?


	5. 1x05 - Morgana le Fay

It all started when Gwen came knocking at Gaius' door late one morning. Merlin hadn't been there at the time, but he could well imagine her distress, having seen it once before when her father took deathly ill. And so it was that Gwen ushered Gaius to the Lady Morgana, in the hope that he could wake her when all the maid's efforts had been of no avail.

By high noon that day, the court gossip was astir with rumours.  Along every corridor there were whispers that the king's ward had taken gravely ill with a mysterious sleeping sickness, and that even the Royal Physician could not wake her.

The king and prince were fetched, Merlin tagging alongside Arthur. Morgana looked so peaceful asleep, a state she normally had such trouble reaching that it seemed irony of the cruellest sort that she would only find rest when rest was ailing her. Merlin looked on from his place near the door while the king and prince sat by her side. Gaius bustled about trying various remedies. Gwen stood near the foot of the bed, as if hoping her beloved mistress would rise to give her her orders for the day.

The next day, he came across Gwen crying on the top steps of an upper landing in an empty guest wing. It was only by chance Merlin had come that way, having ducked up the nearest staircase to avoid a bad-tempered old nobleman. He hesitated on the spiralling steps; since the only reason Gwen would be there would be to break down in private, he was undecided if he should leave to respect her wishes or try to comfort her in some way. The choice was taken out of his hands when Gwen turned her head towards him, wiping at her eyes like one trying to remove the evidence.

"Merlin," she said dully. Her watery smile was messily pinned in place and straining at the pins already.

Merlin continued up the steps to sit beside her. He racked his brain for reassurances, but all the ones that came to mind he couldn't bring himself to give, not being confident of them himself. They sat together without words for a while, the silence only broken by the soft sound of Gwen's crying. At length, her sobs slowed. She took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes with her sleeves.

"Thanks for staying with me," she said. Merlin offered a half-shrug, wishing he could do more. "It's just... it's so difficult to see her like this. I've known Morgana for so long and she's always been such a good friend to me - "

Gwen cut off as though choked, swallowing heavily. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths before continuing. "We were just ten when we met. We'd both recently lost a parent - she her father, and I my mother. I was a chambermaid at the time, just starting at the palace and very nervous. And Morgana - she was so good to me. The day I was chosen to attend to her was one of the happiest of my life."

Gwen wiped at her eyes with her sleeves. "I spend every day with her - I can't picture my life without her in it. I always thought we'd go through all the milestones together, if she dies... I can't picture them. I can see Morgana on my wedding day, clapping and smiling in the front pew, clearer than I can imagine the blissful face of my husband. And I can well imagine her a bride - we'd spend hours drawing out the perfect design for her dress, and then I'd spare no effort creating her vision for her. She'd be radiant with happiness when she wore it - the most beautiful woman in the world. Our children would play together every day, while we half-watch as we chat."

Gwen looked to Merlin wretchedly. "What'll I do, if she doesn't make it?"

"She will," Merlin reassured, willing it to be true. "Gaius is doing everything he can for her. She'll get better; you'll see."

Gwen nodded, trying to smile again. She stood, brushing the dust from the floor off her skirts, and excused herself, half-fleeing down the steps with her face cast downwards. Merlin stood with a sigh, and waited a few minutes for Gwen to pass before returning to the main part of the castle himself.

The next two days were torturously long. Merlin may not have had such a long history with Morgana as Gwen, nor was he as close to her, but it was painful to see the kind, spirited woman lying so lifeless.

Gaius tried various remedies to no effect, and Merlin delved into the healing section of his book against Gaius' advice. There, he found no easy answers. He tried every safe spell for head injuries or infections on Morgana, and none of them helped in the slightest. Three days after she'd taken ill, Gaius pronounced her to be hours away from death, saying that there was no more he could do for her.

And that was when Merlin first met Edwin, a young but learned man who had a remedy to cure all ills.

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Edwin's remedy was sorcery - though this was of course not what he let the general population believe. Merlin had mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, Morgana would have died without Edwin's intervention. On the other, Edwin's lies about his cure put Gaius in a bad light. Merlin tried to dispel these thoughts; after all, Edwin had tried to speak up for Gaius, so surely it wasn't entirely his fault that at the moment Gaius' name was left in the mud with the king. It wasn't like Edwin could have told the king the truth; he'd had to lie, and any lie he'd told would make Gaius look less competent in comparison.

It was not merely one act of sorcery, however, that was making Merlin feel like he was being tugged in opposing directions. Edwin had offered to tutor him in magic. It was a thrilling opportunity - here was a man who could teach Merlin far more than a book could. He'd restored Morgana to her usual self when all of Merlin's efforts had failed; nowhere in his spellbook were Edwin's beetles so much as mentioned. There was so much he could learn from Edwin, and all he had to do was say yes.

Yet he felt that doing so would be a betrayal of Gaius, the man who'd taken him in despite the danger of harbouring a sorcerer and treated him like his own son. The casual, entitled way Edwin used his magic was practically sacrilege, it was so opposite to Gaius’ beliefs about hard work and caution. As hard to swallow as Gaius' words were, they made a lot of sense to Merlin. Magic was powerful; for that reason alone it demanded more thought and deliberation than Edwin gave it.

Edwin's words, though, also had a ring of truth to them. Merlin should be using his magic to better the world; that was the entire point of coming to Camelot, it was the entire reason Gaius had given him his spellbook. Edwin's words about his right to use his abilities spoke to Merlin: why shouldn't he use the gift that came naturally to him? If the rest of the world had been born lame, should he feel guilty to walk and run and dance just because others couldn't?

Once, when Merlin first came to Camelot, Gaius said that there might be someone out there more knowledgeable on magic than him. In the half year since then, Edwin was the first person to appear before Merlin who matched that description. It was exhilarating to think of all the questions he could answer and all the things he could teach.

If only Gaius and Edwin got along, Merlin wouldn't be gnawed apart by indecision on whether or not to accept Edwin's offer.

He supposed the tension between them was inevitable, seeing their introduction occurred when Edwin one-upped Gaius. Yet he felt it stretched beyond that. There was an underlying competition between them, as Merlin had half-expected though he'd hoped otherwise.  As the days went on it seemed to get worse instead of better, until it bared its ugly fangs; Gaius was dismissed from his position based on Edwin's claims.

That was Merlin's first test, where he had to definitely pick one over the other. When it came, there was no hesitation; he'd leave Camelot and Edwin behind to follow Gaius in a heartbeat, if Gaius had consented. He hadn't; he'd talked Merlin into staying. But it wasn't long afterwards when Merlin's loyalties were put to a more extreme, final testing.

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Arthur’s panic was contagious, and so Merlin found himself rushing to Edwin’s quarters at top speed.  He flung open the door, a condensed explanation of the king’s sudden illness on the tip of his tongue, and stopped short, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut by the sight within.

Heat poured out from the open door, a hitting him like a slap to the face.  Edwin stood before a ring of fire encircling Gaius, who was squeezed against a pillar to avoid the leaping flames.

“What are you doing?” Merlin asked, horrified.  Surely there was an explanation for this – surely it couldn’t be what it looked like.

“He’s trying to kill the king!”  Gaius called, “I couldn’t let him!”

Arthur’s panicked voice flashed through Merlin’s mind, saying _my father has Morgana’s illness_.  That was Edwin’s fault?  But if that was Edwin’s fault, then when Morgana was dying, when they’d hovered uncertainly for days hoping for a miracle, Gwen crying in private and Arthur pacing in frustrated helplessness, was that too Edwin’s fault?  And then all that had followed – Gaius’ fall in standing leading to his forced retirement – had that been intentional on Edwin’s part?

“I can rule the kingdom now, with you at my side.”  Edwin said, like he was some other person than the man Merlin had gotten to know in the last few days.  “We can be all-powerful.”

The words felt disconnected to Merlin; they existed on a separate plane from his concerns.  What did Edwin’s ambitions have to do with Gaius’ life?  “Release him.”

“It’s your loss, Merlin.”

Edwin looked over to an ornamental arrangement of battleaxes.  With a slight hand movement, he sent one off the wall and towards Merlin.  Leaning back to avoid it, too rushed to think up a proper spell, Merlin reverted to pure instinct.  The axe slowed to a stop a mere foot from his face, by willpower alone.

Edwin cast another spell, his magic tugging against the axe to bring it back under his control.  Merlin tightened his hold on it, but it began to slide away.  His hold wouldn’t last indefinitely.  Moreover, the heat made it hard to think; already his focus was slipping.

He couldn’t let Edwin win; he’d die in an instant, and Gaius would follow soon after.  Merlin pushed the axe backwards, determined not to give Edwin the time to overpower him.  He heard a sickening thud.  Edwin crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings were cut. 

The magic fighting against his vanished.  In the periphery of his vision, the ring of flames fell.  Gauis was saved.  Merlin let out a breath he didn’t remember taking in, panting in exertion.

Beneath Edwin, a pool of red began to seep.  The back of Merlin’s throat burned.  He swallowed deeply, forcing the burning sensation down into the pit of his stomach, which rebelled against this.  He looked away, to Gaius, who was safe, but even as he smiled in relief the afterimage of Edwin’s crumpled corpse lingered, like it had been burned into his retinas.

Edwin hadn’t been the man he’d thought he was, Merlin tried to tell himself, to ease the burning.  He’d tried to kill Gaius.  He’d probably been the cause of Morgana’s illness, and all his friends’ grief.  He’d framed Gaius for incompetence.  He was trying to kill the king.

Arthur’s frantic face rose with this thought, and Merlin seized upon the distraction.  Cramming his revolting emotions within a box, slamming down the lid to mitigate the overflow, Merlin sprang into action.  Only once he and Gaius were in Uther’s chambers, with Edwin’s beetles, did Merlin stop to think of the next step.  And when Gaius revealed what it was, Merlin balked.

“We can’t use magic on Uther, he’d kill us!”

But Gaius was insistent, looking to Merlin with imploring eyes full of expectations.  Merlin wavered; he couldn’t bear to disappoint his mentor, not so soon after almost losing him.  Gaius thought that healing Uther was the right thing to do, and his half-hearted loyalty to Gaius had nearly resulted in his mentor’s fiery death, had Merlin’s eyes not been opened in the nick of time.  This time, Merlin would whole-heartedly trust Gaius’ judgement, even if he wasn’t sure he understood it.

When the deed was done and the king was saved, Gaius offered some of his rare praise, which was all the more sincere for its rarity.  Merlin laughed a bit in exhilaration, feeling a warm glow despite everything.  For that moment, it seemed the world was righted to how it should be.

Yet in the days following Edwin's death, Merlin was kept awake at night by his choices. What would he have done, if Gaius hadn't been in danger? Would he still have stood against Edwin and said no, you must not kill the king?

He was certain he wouldn't have used magic to save Uther, the murderer of his father, if Gaius hadn't been there, urging him on when he hesitated.

Now that it was all over, and he'd escaped with his head intact by sole virtue of Uther being in the dark about how he'd been saved, Merlin couldn't stop himself from thinking how much easier his life and many others would be if he'd let Uther die.

While he tortured himself with could-have-beens from that day when he'd held the lives of three people in his hands, Merlin couldn't help but mourn the could-have-been had Edwin truly been who he’d pretended to be, and Merlin had been able to learn from him.  Gaius tried, but Gaius had lived through the Purge; he could not offer Merlin the unconditional encouragement Merlin craved. Gaius' brand of encouragement was like the potions he made; good for you, but bitter to swallow. He would not praise Merlin animating beetles; he'd be far more likely to smack him across the back of his head and chide,  _put that away - what if you get caught?_

Edwin had provided something Merlin hadn't realised he'd been craving: a second person to talk to about his struggles. Gaius was his mentor, his confidant, and like a father to him, but he often knew what Gaius' advice would be without having to ask him:  _be careful, use your magic for good, and use it only when science cannot provide the solution._  There were times when Gaius surprised him - asking him to cure Uther with magic, for one - but in general his guesses of what Gaius' advice would be were pretty accurate.

He was grateful to have someone to talk to as he would surely go mad without anyone seeing him for who he truly was, but he often craved a second opinion or less brusque listener. Edwin had offered him those things, and it seemed to Merlin they would not be so easy to come by again. Yet within a fortnight he was proven wrong, when for the second time in as many days Morgana le Fay and her sleeping problems caught his attention.

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Merlin hadn't ever given much thought to Morgana's nightmares. As the physician's once full-time and now part-time apprentice, he encountered a city's worth of health related problems that came in all shapes and sizes and degrees of gravity. Some noblewomen had corns on their feet, some had eczema brought on by too much make-up, and as for the Lady Morgana, she had problems sleeping - it had seemed that simple to him. His first indications otherwise came out of the blue.

He and Arthur had just rescued a girl in the woods – Sophia of Tír-Mòr, a noblewoman who'd recently lost her home to raiders. Arthur brought her before his father, and the king took her and her father Aulfric in as guests. Merlin had just finished showing her to her chambers when he was accosted by Morgana.

To say that Morgana was acting weird was an understatement. She looked at Sophia as if she was someone she knew and detested, yet she'd had to ask Merlin for her name. Morgana was blunt in her hostility towards the other lady, yet reticent on her reasons why. More than anything she seemed distracted, and Merlin was under the impression that her mind had only been half with him in that brief exchange of information - on her end, at least; Merlin walked away in utter bafflement.

It would take two days for Morgana's strange reaction to Uther's guests to be explained, and when it was, the explanation came from a most unexpected source.

In retrospect, Merlin felt he should have known that Gaius would have the answer. Gaius was like a great well of knowledge; not much went on in the court that he wasn't aware of. As so it was that Merlin got a lesson on the gift of seers, and how Morgana had shown all the signs of being one since she was very young.

Something stirred in Merlin's distant childhood recollections then. "Vivienne, Morgana's mother... is that where she gets it from?" Gaius looked astonished at Merlin's deduction which, given he'd supposedly never met Morgana's mother, must seem an unbelievable leap of logic. As Gaius didn't seem inclined to believe he'd understood Merlin correctly, Merlin clarified, "She was a seer, too, wasn't she?"

After confirming this, Gaius of course asked how Merlin knew. And that was how Merlin ended up telling Gaius about his childhood time-defying kidnapping that he generally tried not to think about too often, out of deep-rooted guilt at Aithusa's continued containment.

The old man looked as though he'd given him much food for thought, most of it hard to chew and harder still to swallow. "… What was it that Vortigern called you?"

Merlin shrugged. "I don't remember. It's been so long... Em-something."

It seemed to Merlin a small matter to get caught up on - out of everything in those events, Vortigern getting his name wrong was perhaps the least important. Gaius seemed to think otherwise. "You said you told him your name was Myrddin... Myrddin Emrys, was that what they called you?"

"Yeah, I think so." The name rang true to his distant recollections. Merlin remembered Gaius knew about the blood rain, and a weird feeling came over him as something occurred to him. "How do you know?"

It was difficult to tell what Gaius was feeling then, as even Gaius looked uncertain how he should take this confirmation. "When he was alive, Uther's older brother Aurelius often went on solo reconnaissance missions. One time he came back with tales of how Vortigern had offended the gods and the priestesses, and of a young boy named Myrddin Emrys who had a pet dragon and the favour of the gods resting upon him.

Gaius raised his eyebrows. "You should be honoured; you inspired him to change the name of his bloodline to Pendragon and use dragon emblems on all his banners. He even took on Ambrosius, the Latinized version of Emrys, as a title."

Perhaps this was Gaius' form of revenge, was all Merlin could think as he struggled to process this. Merlin had told him something unbelievable yet true, and Gaius had retaliated by forcing a strange truth onto him: he, Merlin, was responsible for all of Camelot's draconic imagery that he had always found ill-fitting to represent Uther's reign. It was a truth that was just plain bizarre, but he had a nagging suspicion that nine years ago (three decades ago?) Aurelius had indeed said something about dragons and banners before leaving.

There was an uncomfortable intensity in Gaius' gaze now, as though he'd seen something in Merlin that went beyond weird childhood anecdotes and accidentally naming dynasties. Gaius seemed to be piecing pieces of an enormous puzzle together, now that he had the guidance of a reference picture, and looked too stunned at what he was discovering to know how to deal with it.

At length, he shook his head as though to clear it and resumed the normal expression of fond exasperation he used towards his impossibly talented but reckless ward. "Merlin, you truly do puzzle the mind. Only you could be the center of such ridiculousness."

Merlin couldn't bring himself to disagree. Keen to move away from this strange side tangent of realisations they'd gotten onto and keep Gaius from looking at him as though he was a different person than his ward, he retraced the conversation back to its origin. "Sooo... If Morgana's a seer and she had a dream about Sophia, I assume that's going to tie in with what you said about Sophia being untrustworthy?"

Gaius jumped on the shift in topic, as though he too was not eager to discuss the strange significance behind Merlin's past mishaps, and started telling Merlin about potential plots to kill the prince and about Aulfric's eye's which turned red when he was angered.

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Gaius had seen many things over his long lifetime and those that he hadn't had the privilege to witness in person he could often find in a neglected musty recess of an old library. With time and a reference book he could read and write many obscure languages, though he could only converse in a few of them, and at one point in his early sixties he'd made it his goal to read through the entirety of the court record rooms, taking in more facts than his old brain could process.

He considered himself well-versed in all literature, scientific or otherwise, and he liked to think that - while no man could have the answers to every question life could throw at him - over the years he'd accumulated within his head and books more answers than the average man. And so it was that he could, with a level head and analytic mind, calmly face down plagues and scheming courtiers and magic-hating kings and most of the trials that life had thrown his way.

Then Merlin had arrived in his life, carrying a load of unanswerable questions on his shoulders as baggage that no boy his age should have to bear, and Gaius was confronted with questions he'd never thought to ask of the world.

It had been nearly half a year since that day, and Gaius had grown used to Merlin's unique brand of magic. He never had learned all that he wished to from the dragonlords, so he couldn't be sure that Merlin's uniqueness couldn't be put down to his blood, though he strongly suspected that Merlin wasn't typical even for the son of a dragonlord. Nevertheless, not counting Merlin's strange experiences when he was dying of poison, it had been a long time since the lad had caused Gaius to question his knowledge of the ways of the world.

Then Merlin had, with wide blue eyes and the innocence of a child repeating words beyond his comprehension, told him that he was Emrys. It explained so much that Gaius was astounded it hadn't occurred to him earlier.

Yet even that hadn't been as strange a realisation as when Merlin - again, with the innocence of a child who had no idea of the implications of his words - informed him that he'd followed Aulfric to Avalon. Merlin was nonchalant even when informed that no mortal could see Avalon except in the moments preceding death, merely shrugging and dismissing it with, "Well, I've seen it and I'm still here."

He'd had to let the matter go at the time; Arthur was in danger of being sacrificed to the Sidhe and they didn't have time to discuss the implications of Merlin returning from the Lake of Avalon. Nonetheless, late that night and well into the next day, Gaius ran through all he knew multiple times, examining the situation from every which angle.

Either the literature written about Avalon was wrong, or else the meaning behind the name  _Emrys_  was more literal than Gaius had hitherto suspected.

The next morning when Merlin slobbed jam down his shirt while he ate and ran to attend to Arthur at the same time, it was difficult to see him as Emrys, great immortal sorcerer who journeyed to and from the Land of Eternal Bliss without batting an eye. Perhaps that was Gaius' problem, he mused as he went about his daily tasks. He was trying to see Merlin as Emrys, in all the preconceived glory he associated with the name, when instead he should be trying to see Emrys as Merlin, a boy who existed outside of the words of long dead poets and seers. It was two things that were the same and yet weren't; it was looking at the same problem after tilting the parchment to read it better.

Still, Gaius was almost glad for the distraction Arthur's disastrous audience with his father provided. Even if it came in the form of Arthur narrowly escaping being engaged to a Sidhe, any diversion from the concerns that would continue to plague him long after this matter was dealt with was welcome.

He knew he'd have to tell Merlin about the significance of being Emrys sometime, but for now Gaius could lie to himself and say he was putting it off until after this mess was over. But Gaius suspected that even once they'd gotten rid of the Sidhe, he'd find another excuse to hold off on the conversation. It would be kindness, really, not to put such weight on the boy's shoulders - that was something Gaius could tell himself to ease the lie of omission.

Somewhere in the deep of his mind, there was another, deeper reason it was better for Merlin not to know. In his old age, Gaius had seen many good-hearted youngsters change with age, and not always for the better. Julius Borden and Edwin had both been sweet boys once upon a time, who'd eagerly tested out spells that were little more that party tricks, with the same delight Merlin always had alight on their faces. Then their powers grew, and they never learned where to draw the line.

Emrys,  _immortal_ , destined for greatness, said to be the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth... he didn't dare tell that to any youth, even one so good as Merlin, for fear of warping a self-image still in development.

It wasn't Merlin Gaius didn't trust, it was himself; he was the one shared fixture in the lives of Uther, Julius, and Edwin. He knew it wasn't his fault how they'd turned out, but – though he never could pinpoint quite how he could have turned them off the paths they'd started down on themselves – a heavy mantle of regret lay on his shoulders that he could never be rid of. These had all been boys or young men who'd looked to him for guidance at one point in their lives, and he'd failed them all. It scared him more than he'd admit that he might do the same with Merlin; what if he again missed that pivotal moment, where the path to damnation opened up?

No, Gaius didn't dare to tell a bright-eyed young lad that he had infinite power lying untouched at his fingertips; even though he knew he'd have to, eventually.

Morgana broke him from his internal dilemma, striding into his chambers late in the day more upset than he'd seen her since Gwen's arrest. "He's gone! Arthur's gone with her! She's taken him! I know you don't believe me, but I'm so sure it's going to happen. My dream's going to come true."

It took much soothing, but he managed to calm Morgana. She had to be stopped from the rash actions she was prone to; going to Uther about her dream would only hurt her and not help Arthur any.

There was only one person in Camelot, in the world even, who could help Arthur now. It took tremendous power to defeat two Sidhe, but more than that, no mortal could follow them where they had gone. There was only one human alive who could, and Gaius feared for him when he discovered why that was.

It would seem that, despite Gaius' reluctance to burden his ward with the knowledge of his destiny, he could not be rid of the need for Merlin to play the role written out for him.

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The sun was high in the sky, streaming through Arthur’s window, by the time Arthur stirred with a great groan.  Merlin and Gaius, seated by his bedside waiting for such a noise, snapped to attention.  Arthur opened his eyes, groggily asking what happened.

“Can you remember anything?” Merlin asked, to determine how much he’d have to explain and what he would be able to keep Arthur in the dark over.  There were several things – surviving a magical blast to the chest, chief among them – that would be best if he could just conveniently forget to mention.

Arthur pulled his head off his pillows with a pained groan, clutching at it with one hand and squeezing his eye in a grimace.  After a moment of thinking, he adopted a confused look, and started to remember slowly.  “There was a girl… Sophia, she… I asked my father something about her, I asked him…”

Arthur suddenly stilled, and then bolted up in bed.  “What was I thinking?!”

Merlin glanced at Gaius before responding, seeking a go-ahead to begin the yarn they’d spun while waiting for Arthur to regain consciousness.  Gaius didn’t stop him, apparently having concluded as well that Sophia’s love spell had dulled Arthur’s memory enough to proceed with their altered version of events.  “Well, we did wonder.  Especially when you eloped with her last night.”

“I did what!?”  Arthur apparently didn’t even remember this much.

From there, Merlin and Gaius took it in turns to give Arthur their glossed over version of events: Arthur, in a fit of passion, had eloped with Sophia in the middle of the night, and had to be knocked out by Merlin and dragged back to Camelot. 

The real story, of course, had been much more magical and dangerous.  Merlin’s nerves still felt frayed from those heart-stopping moments in the frigid lake water, trying to locate Arthur through the reeds and murky water concealing him.  Even after he’d dragged him above the surface, he’d had to hit Arthur’s back several times to get him breathing again, feeling like the cold had crept into his very heart as the terrible thought occurred to him that he’d been too late.  It was an experience he would be glad to put behind him, and not one he wanted to have to try and convince Arthur of, even if there weren’t things in it that he couldn’t easily explain without telling Arthur about his magic.

From the look of things, even the fabricated story was a slight to Arthur’s ego.  Merlin had to admit, telling Arthur he’d whacked him over the head with a lump of wood had been extremely satisfying, even if he knew it was a lie.

“No one can know about this,” Arthur threatened, unaware that this was exactly what physician and apprentice wanted.  “ _Any_ of it.  Is that understood?”

Merlin’s smugness at having things go his way, however, only lasted until they had to give a secondary falsehood about the day’s events to the king.  He’d thought everything was going swimmingly, up until Uther made an ominous remark about food shortages.

And so it was that, for the third time in three days, Merlin found himself the object of entertainment for children with too much time and spoiled food on their hands.  With the smelly goo of rotten pulp trickling down the contours of his face, Merlin questioned for the millionth time since he'd first pulled Arthur out of the path of a dagger why it was that he continually stuck out his neck for that boy. His rewards were sparse, and more often they were of the unwelcome ilk.

The sun felt like it was leisurely loafing around in the sky, meandering downwards at a pace that was tauntingly slow. At last it finally was spreading its colourful cast into the rest of the sky as it neared the horizon, and the time came for Merlin to be released from the stocks.

To his great surprise, there was someone still standing on the street that had long since emptied. The man was off to the side, where he hadn't been visible to Merlin from the limited view of the stocks, and he was staring directly at Merlin and looking as though he was waiting for him.

He was a stooped old man with sparse white frizz surrounding a shining bronze bald spot covering his entire upper scalp like a crown. Merlin couldn't place him for a moment, but when he saw a large barrel of tomatoes lying at the man's feet, it came to him in a flash where he'd seen him before. It was Tenoch, the tomato seller whose granddaughter he'd cured months before.

Tenoch soon saw he'd caught Merlin's attention. The old man waved Merlin over, looking a little uncomfortable to be doing so. "You can't _g_ o wan _d_ ering  _th_ e streets looking like  _th_ at. You can clean up at my place, i _f_  you' _d_ like."

Disconcerted by this unexpected invitation, Merlin was of half a mind to say no – the walk back to Gaius' chambers wasn't  _that_  long. Then Tenoch lifted up the half-full barrel, his old bones creaking and his face screwing up with the effort, and suddenly Merlin's worries looked laughably irrational; here was an old decrepit man, what was there to be wary of? He'd accepted the girl’s cloth easily enough when they'd first met; he had no good reason to think her grandfather was any less sincere in his desire to be helpful.

"Here, let me carry it," Merlin said, taking the barrel from Tenoch.

Tenoch's home was a block away, which Merlin was very grateful of. He wasn't sure how the old man had gotten the barrel into the marketplace full, for even half-emptied it was very heavy. Glancing around the main room of Tenoch's house, it was difficult to find floor space to put it that wasn't already occupied with other, fuller barrels. Spotting a clearing, Merlin left it leaning against the wall, just under a giant crack.

"Ah!" Tenoch cried. When Merlin turned, he seemed to be wishing he could take back that one reflexive noise. From behind Merlin, he could hear a faint scuffling within the wall. " _J_ ust… I' _d_  p _r_ e _f_ er it i _f_  it wa _s_ n't  _r_ ight a _g_ ainst  _th_ e wall…"

Merlin obediently pushed the barrel away from the wall, wondering absentmindedly if Tenoch had a mouse problem. Tenoch beckoned him towards a cluttered table, where a bowl of water lay beside a stack of dirty dishes. Merlin had to sidestep through a winding path of narrow spaces between one barrel and the next to get there.

Tenoch handed Merlin a cloth, and Merlin reflexively thanked him. He started to wash up, then paused as he registered something missing. "Where’s Miya?"

"She went home,  _j_ ust a _f_ ter _th_ e autumn equinox." Tenoch seemed surprised Merlin hadn't known this. Merlin couldn't recall seeing her lately, but then he spent much less time in the lower town now that he was Arthur's servant. "Winter' _s_ slow  _f_ or bu _s_ iness, what wi _th_  people _r_ ationing  _th_ eir  _f_ un _ds_  until planting sea _s_ on come _s_  a _r_ oun _d_ , so I sent her home to help out her pa _r_ ents on  _th_ e  _f_ arm."

"In the winter?"

Tenoch looked amused by Merlin's confusion. "It's much warmer where we come  _fr_ om  _th_ an it i _s_  here. It takes more e _ff_ ort to _gr_ ow c _r_ ops  _thr_ ough  _th_ e winter,  _b_ ut wi _th_   _th_ e  _r_ ight techniques it's  _d_ oa _b_ le."

Merlin hadn't ever heard of a land like that. He knew growing seasons varied in different lands – Camelot had a longer one than Ealdor, for one – but he couldn't picture a land where farms grew food without pause all through the year. Did that mean they had plants with very long growing seasons, or did they have two harvests a year? "What kingdom are you from?"

"It's  _v_ e _r_ y  _f_ ar away, you won't ha _v_ e hear _d_  o _f_  it," Tenoch evaded. He cut off Merlin's next questions before he could voice them. "T _r_ a _d_ e sec _r_ et – sor _r_ y, _b_ ut I can't  _r_ isk my competitors  _d_ isco _v_ ering my sources and cutting into my _b_ u _s_ iness, now, can I?"

"I suppose not," Merlin muttered, disappointed, and went back to scrubbing the guck out of his skin and hair.

Something nagged at him while he washed; Tenoch had said that Miya had gone home a month ago, but the stack of dishes on the cluttered table was more than what a single man would get through. Upon further examination, there were other small things that indicated otherwise. Her stool was still taking up precious floor space; surely in the month she'd been gone Tenoch would have put it away to free up some room? Directly above it on a wall shelf was a large basket of assorted fresh fruits, arranged artistically and painstakingly decorated with brightly coloured ribbons laced into frills and tied into many delicate little bows – an aesthetic appealing to little girls, not old men.

The most glaring contradiction was two slender gloves that would not fit a man's hand. They were resting atop an open barrel of potatoes one moment, yet when Merlin closed his eyes to wash pulp juice off his face he heard shifting around in that direction. When he reopened his eyes, the gloves were gone and Tenoch's hands were behind his back. He looked like he was braced for a comment, but Merlin wasn't exactly sure what accusation he could give.

_Why are you hiding gloves behind your back_  sounded weird even in his head.  Instead, he asked, "Does Miya come back to visit you?"

"No," Tenoch shifted slightly, fiddling with what he was remarkably unsuccessfully trying to hide. "Like I sai _d_ , we come  _fr_ om a lan _d_   _th_ at is  _f_ ar away.  _Th_ ere woul _d_ n't  _b_ e time  _f_ or her to t _r_ a _v_ el here and  _b_ ack. She won't _r_ eturn until  _th_ e sp _r_ ing."

Merlin had cleaned himself as best he could, so he placed his dirtied towel between the bowl of water and stack of dishes that were too many for one man.

He debated over whether to call Tenoch out on the inconsistencies between his words and the realities of his home, but he couldn't think of anything to say. The excessive amount of dishes, Miya's stool being left out, the effeminate fruit basket, and even her gloves didn't exactly constitute irrevocable proof of her presence – though that Tenoch was hiding the gloves behind his back was rather suspicious.

In the end, whether Miya was or was not there, it wasn't really Merlin's business. If there was anything wrong then Tenoch wouldn't say she'd be coming back in the spring. He was beginning to wonder if the merchant of exotic goods just liked to be pointlessly mysterious, or if he was just that paranoid about his competitors discovering where exactly tomatoes and potatoes and the other things he sold came from that he'd lie about how far away his country was.

"Well, thanks again for your help." Merlin said, awkwardly edging towards the door, wondering how quickly he could leave without looking rude.

Tenoch backed out of Merlin's way, conspicuous in his efforts to keep his back out of Merlin's view. "It's no pro _b_ lem," he sounded like one who was trying to sound nonchalant, but he couldn't quite contain his relief at Merlin's move towards departure. "None at all. Miyahuatl wan-… I mean, Miya _would_  want me to - if she knew a _b_ out your _r_ ecent punishments,  _th_ at is. She's  _v_ e _r_ y taken wi _th_  you; i _f_ she wa _s_ here, she' _d_ help hersel _f_."

It really was amazing, the way Tenoch was acting. Merlin wondered if this was what he looked like, when he'd almost let his secret slip and was so desperate to act unsuspicious that he came across as a babbling simpleton.

"Right, er, well I should go…"

"O _f_  course, o _f_ course," Tenoch said a touch too quickly and enthusiastically. " _Th_ e door' _s_  o _v_ er  _th_ ere…"

Two sharp knocks sounded from the opposite wall, the one with the big crack on it. Merlin looked at it puzzled; there was nothing there, so he had no idea what could have made that sound. Tenoch looked startled by the noise as well, but more upset at it than confused. He glanced over at Merlin as though gauging his reaction.

" _D_ on't min _d_   _th_ at. It's pro _b_ a _b_ ly  _j_ ust… mice," he finished unconvincingly. As he should; what kind of mice knock?

Tenoch looked back to the wall, tilting his head slightly. Then his eyes widened and he drew in his breath, like he'd just remembered something. "Ah, yes. Wait a moment."

Tenoch wove his way through the labyrinth of barrels and pulled the girlish basket from the upper shelf. Merlin couldn't help but notice that he didn't need the stool to reach it. Tenoch handed the basket to Merlin. "Here." Tenoch’s eyes flickered to the numerous little bows and he gave a small grimace. " _Th_ is is to apolo _g_ i _z_ e _f_ or supplying most of  _th_ e  _f_ oo _d thr_ own at you –  _th_ ough to  _b_ e  _f_ air," he defended, "it's not like it wa _s_  personal; i _f_  people want to  _b_ uy my ware _s_ , I'm not  _g_ oing to  _d_ ictate how  _th_ ey u _s_ e  _th_ em."

He gave the scarcest of glances at the wall, again, and lowered his voice. "Also, I want to  _th_ ank you  _f_ or  _b_ eing so kin _d_  to Miya."

He started guiding Merlin towards the door as he spoke. "She wa _s_   _v_ e _r_ y ner _v_ ous a _b_ out coming here. When she  _f_ irst a _rr_ i _v_ e _d_  it was har _d_  on her, not knowing anyone. She ha _d_  lots o _f_   _d_ i _ff_ icultie _s_  making f _r_ ien _ds_  becau _s_ e she couldn't speak Common well. It wa _s_  har _d_ ,  _f_ or a young _g_ irl to  _b_ e so alone, so she was  _v_ e _r_ y happy to meet you. I coul _d_  alway _s_  tell i _f_  she' _d_  seen you on any  _g_ i _v_ en  _d_ ay  _b_ y her smile – she _r_ eally en _j_ oye _d_  ha _v_ ing someone o _th_ er  _th_ an her  _d_ o _dd_ ery ol _d_   _gr_ an _df_ a _th_ er to talk to."

"Well, at that time I was also a foreigner in a new city," Merlin hedged, made awkward by the praise. He stepped over the threshold, but didn't turn down the street.

He didn't tell Tenoch that his sympathies for the square peg who just couldn't fit into that coveted round hole, no matter how hard it tried, extended further back than his entrance to Camelot. He'd never lived anywhere where he couldn't speak the language, but he understood better than anyone the feeling of being surrounded by people who all had something in common that – no matter how you tried – you couldn't emulate without it being noticeably off.

Suddenly, Merlin was glad that he'd never given into his occasional urges to brush the little girl aside when she got too overexcited or irritating.

"Still," Tenoch hesitated, then stepped out the house and drew the door nearly shut behind him. He lowered his voice so much that Merlin had to crane forwards to hear him. "It can't  _b_ e ea _s_ y to ha _v_ e to humour a younger  _g_ irl.  _F_ or what it's wor _th_ , it's much appreciate _d_."

Merlin made his way up the castle stairs in considerable higher spirits than he'd left them in earlier that day, when he'd covered for Arthur for the third time in as many days and been sentenced to the stocks  _again_. The oddities of the merchant household were almost forgotten as he carried the girly gift and the old man's gratitude with him up to Gaius' chambers.

He'd defeated blue immortal creatures of magic, saved Arthur, and – though he'd been punished – he'd at least gotten free fruit and praise. Merlin was in a good mood all through supper, and when Morgana came into Gaius' chambers he gave her a very cheerful greeting.

Morgana gave a more subdued reply and came forwards without her usual brisk, confident pace. She asked Gaius for a sleeping draught, and once he'd turned away she said in an odd tone. "Arthur told me what actually happened."

She turned to Merlin then, with a forced smile.

Merlin’s mind went blank; he remembered Morgana's look of disbelief in the throne room when Arthur gave his cover story about going on a hunting trip, and he cursed himself now for not guessing she'd confront Arthur about it afterwards.

Haltingly, Morgana continued, "You must have hit him round the head really hard."

His immediate gut reaction was relief that Arthur's memory of what "actually happened" had not returned. This was just as quickly replaced with unease at the deception; Morgana was just as responsible for saving Arthur's life as he was, didn't she deserve to know the truth? It seemed cold-hearted to let her walk away believing her dream had only been a dream.

Beside him, Gaius moved slightly, catching Merlin's eye. He was giving Merlin a look that said in no uncertain terms he was not to say anything foolish.

Merlin felt torn; Morgana had a right to know about her own abilities, but forging ahead disregarding Gaius' advice often had adverse consequences – Gwen's and Lancelot's arrests came to mind. He hesitated, but with Morgana looking expectantly at him his time for deliberations was short. The rhythm of her breathing was off; she was waiting like his reply would determine the course of her life. Hidden under her mask of normalcy, she was nervous, he realised with surprise. He didn't think he'd ever seen Morgana nervous before, which only highlighted how critical she considered his response.

He swallowed, hoping he wasn't about to make a drastic mistake. He carefully avoided looking at Gaius. "Actually, that's not  _quite_  what happened."

Morgana looked as though in the same moment he'd confirmed her greatest fears and greatest hopes. From his peripheral vision, he could see Gaius frantically shaking his head. Merlin made the mistake of glancing over to him, and the look on Gaius' face stopped him. His determination dimmed; he wasn't sure why Gaius wanted Morgana not to be told the truth, but what if he knew something Merlin didn't? Was he really prepared to face the consequences if something went horribly wrong from being truthful with Morgana?

_It's not too late; you can still back out now,_  whispered a tempting voice in the recesses of his mind.  _Tell her that Arthur actually tripped, or hit his head on a tree branch. You can pass off lying as a manifestation of manly pride._

Merlin averted his eyes, looking down at the table to avoid the pleading looks Gaius and Morgana had fixed upon him. He could not get out of this without disappointing one of them.

The decorated fruit basket in the center of the table caught his attention. A great golden pine-cone like monstrosity topped with green tufts of slender leaves rose as the centerpiece, ringed by more normal looking brightly coloured fruits that he still had no names for. The girlish tastes decorating the basket stabbed at him; in them, he could hear an echo of Tenoch's thankfulness for the simple act of talking to a lonely girl.

The loss of the man he’d thought Edwin was, a secondary confidant and advisor, hit Merlin all over again. It had been difficult for him to have the people he could talk to cut down once again to just one person; how would he be able to cope with being completely alone in his secrets?

He forced his gaze back upwards, to where Morgana was still waiting for him to say outright what she suspected, and wondered how he would be able to cope if the veracity of his magic was denied. He'd think he was going insane, imagining things that weren't real.

"Actually," Merlin said, his decision made. "I pulled him out of a lake after Sophia nearly drowned him."

Morgana was so pale that Merlin worried she'd faint right there. Gaius hastily handed her sleeping draught to her and steered her towards the exit. Morgana moved along like a puppet jerked on strings with no thoughts of its own. After she'd been maneuvered outside the door she just stood there, dazed.

Gaius shut the door, blocking her from view, and Merlin braced himself for the berating that was sure to follow. Gaius gave a look to the door before stalking over to Merlin on the other side of the room. His voice was low, but simmering. "What have you done?"

"She deserves the truth - about her dreams coming true, at least. We owe her that much. It was her premonition that saved Arthur's life!"

"Yes, and by telling her you've endangered hers!" Dread stabbed at Merlin, and Gaius continued angrily. "What if she lets something slip to Uther?"

"She could have done that without knowing she was a seer. At least now she knows to be careful."

"Knowledge can be the greatest condemnation – you weren't here twenty years ago, you have no idea what it was like! When people know they have something to hide they  _act_  like they have something to hide. Sometimes, that's all that's needed for their condemnation."

"Morgana's Uther's ward; I think he'll need a bit more evidence than a guilty face to turn against her."

"Don't you remember the plague? Once Uther hears something's the result of witchcraft, he starts seeing foes everywhere. And the next time there's a witch hunt – yes,  _next_  time, Merlin, for there's certain to be one – Morgana will know that she's in peril. Uther is not a blind man; he will notice a change in her demeanor. When magic is concerned, I fear that even his ward is not safe from his paranoia."

"If that happens, then I'll take responsibility for it then." Merlin said to assuage the guilt writhing in his innards.

Even if Gaius was right and Merlin had just made things worse, he wasn't helpless. If somewhere down the line Morgana's fear tipped Uther off that he should arrest her, then Merlin would just have to rescue her. With his disguise he may or may not be able to get her out of Camelot without giving himself away. But even if he did and he could never return to Camelot in his normal appearance, he refused to regret it. Morgana had the right not to be lied to about her own abilities.

But there was no point assuming the worst was inevitable.

"In any case, it hardly matters whether it would be better for her not to know now."

"Yes, I suppose the damage is done," Gaius said wearily. "Let us just hope that this is the only personal discovery Morgana makes. Should she develop further magical gifts, then I fear for her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve combined these episodes because Kilgharrah didn’t affect them much and they’re three-quarters filler anyways. I apologize if you wanted to see the actual episodes happening… but I changed very little from the main conflicts, so they hardly needed blow-by-blow descriptions.
> 
> I know technically Kilgharrah was the one who convinced Gaius to save Merlin in place of Uther, but then in this AU Merlin spent four months hanging out with Gaius all day every day, so I hardly think Gaius would need convincing. It’s not like it took much to convince him in the canon version.
> 
> Poor Morgana’s had a very rough two weeks!


	6. 1x06 - The Meaning You Give It (Part 1)

The harsh scuffle of his leather shoes against the unfeeling stone was too noticeable. He was unused to hearing anything but the slightest whisper of grass beneath him and, though his wary child feet made less noise than could be heard by the bustling city, to him it was deafening. Treacherously so, as each small step sounded like an executioner's drum in his ears.

A hand drew him close, the protective presence of an adult giving a measure of reassurance to the boy. Together they made their way to their destination as silent and unnoticeable as they could. Just a father travelling through Camelot with his son, or so they would say if stopped. They bore no ill will, had no dark intentions, and would be gone swifter than an arrow from a string. And through the boy's mind, one thought rang as he looked around in fear.

_Get in. Get the supplies. Get out._

The supplier had a shifty look about him, as they always did. No one who wasn't shifty themselves would sell to such out-of-place and suspicious looking people as the boy and his guardian. Still, as the man pulled out the goods they'd come to purchase, the boy had an ominous feeling. The man was twitchy, his movements jerky, and his eyes flickered around more than they should. The feelings he emitted - hidden from all save the hyperconscious child prodigy before him employing his talents to their very limit - offered little reassurance.

_Fear_. So thick and tangible in the very air that it could be cut through with a knife.

_Greed_. A force that drove this man to break even the most harshly punished law in the name of a few coins, and a force which could turn against them for just as little.

_Anticipation_. Something could come any second now, might be already lying in wait.

_Guilt_.

The boy felt his heart jolt and beat faster, hammering frantically in his chest. Guilt? Why guilt?

"I'm sorry."

In the awful half-second of processing time, the boy scarcely could think through his mounting terror. But even without thinking he already knew. Even before his master's terse warning, his instilled response had already taken hold before his mind caught up.

_« Run. »_

Without looking where he was going, the boy obeyed, trusting the man holding his hand to know where to go and what to do. They wove down streets, upsetting tables in a desperate bid for time. Their pursuers were barely hindered. Men in gleaming silver armour and cloaks as red as blood closed in on them in all directions. Steel bit into the boy's shoulder, tearing muscle and drawing blood. Only years of training allowed the boy to block the urge to scream aloud, instead pushing all his pain out through his magic.

Faintly, in the distance, he thought he felt someone stir in response.

He was being carried now, but the men kept on coming. His master put him down on his feet, looking desperately into his eyes and half-ordering, half-pleading, "Run."

Pushing him towards the gate, he ordered again. "Run, run!"

The boy obeyed, glancing back at the last minute as the gate came slamming down behind him, trapping him in the citadel of the man who wanted him dead. On one side of the door stood he, and on the other stood the man who had been more than a father to him, alone and about to be surrounded by guards. A half-second later the gate slammed shut, blocking the boy from seeing what happened on the other side. Offering a desperate prayer to the White Goddess for his master's safety, the boy ran without knowing where to, only that he needed to get away from the gate before the guards got it open.

Pavement passed underfoot as he ran further and further inwards in the stronghold of his greatest enemy, knowing he was only further trapping himself but unable to turn back without being caught. He wove through the streets until he came to a courtyard. His stomach sank to his toes; he was just outside of Uther Pendragon's castle itself.

The shout of guards echoed in the distance and he started running in the opposite direction, but there was guards shouting from there as well. He backed into the wall, and slunk beside a wagon which didn't hide him nearly well enough.

Terrified and not knowing what else to do, he cried out for help, praying that he had not just imagined someone heard his earlier scream. He didn't know why someone with magic would be in Camelot unless they were in a situation like his, but in response he felt a turmoil of emotions -  _curiosity_ ,  _alarm_ ,  _wariness_ ,  _concern_ ,  _sympathy_. Barely allowing himself to hope, the boy cried out again, with as much force as he could muster in his weakened state.

He felt it the moment the older boy walked out the door. The amount of pure power radiating off the tall dark haired youth on the steps was astounding, to the point where the young druid wondered how he could have gotten so close to him without sensing it. The older warlock's eyes scanned the courtyard and the young druid called again,

_« Please, you have to help me. »_

The older boy’s eyes found him, and confusion was written upon his face. The child begged again,  _« Help me. »_

The boy glanced off to the side, where the guards were frighteningly close. The druid explained,  _« They're searching for me. »_

The older warlock looked at him in slight apprehension,  _« Why are they after you? »_

Desperately, he pleaded again, not having the time or energy to explain further, _« They're going to kill me. »_

The turmoil of emotions in the older boy hardened into a single one:  _resolve_.

Moving off the staircase and towards an entrance way cloaked in shadow, the older warlock beckoned.  _« This way. Run. Run! »_

Glancing at the guard, the young druid lurched to his feet and did just that, focusing on the stone pavement in front of him and his goal rather than anything happening around him. He tried not to think that he was running towards the heart of the mad king's domain, that he was out in the open where all could see him, that he could hear guards yelling out his position and running after him, that he was injured and even running this short distance was making his heart beat too fast... his blood flowing too quickly in his veins and out the puncture in his skin...

The time it took him to reach the shadowed entrance way stretched for a heart-stopping eternity. The older boy tugged him down corridors and staircases without a word. The moment that pale hand closed over his, though, the young druid felt reassured despite everything.

The older warlock was nothing like any mage the young druid had ever encountered. The magic flowing through their mental link and tingling beneath his skin was wild, not untamed as happened in uninstructed sorcerers but rather untameable as a force of nature. The term sorcerer ill fit the thin warlock whose hand he held, and even the more prestigious word warlock paled. Creature of magic was the most accurate term the young boy knew of for his rescuer, but even that felt slightly off.

The druid didn't know whether the direction they were headed in was towards or away from the heart of his enemy's domain. The hand holding his was so warm it hurt, like the searing kiss of the sun. If the older boy let go, would he see that his skin was red and pealing? But even if it was, he didn't want to let go. Like when the sun warmth caressed him, he couldn't stop himself from seeking it out, even when his head told him he would pay the price later.

The older boy pulled them through a door, clutching the druid child to his chest as he latched it against their pursuers. Two more swirls of emotion were behind them, and an indignant female voice called out something. He thought he should know what she was saying, but it was as though she was speaking underwater.

They turned to face her, and the boy was instantly struck by the smothered magic burning defiantly in her under all its trappings. He met her beautiful pale eyes, and a warm plethora of caring emotions was directed to him. She couldn't mind-speak - her magic was too trapped for that - but somehow, in a way he never had before with anyone else, they just connected. For a moment he was her, and she was him. He saw himself through her eyes, and felt her fear as deeply as his own.

There was the dull sound of talking behind him, and the woman broke eye contact, turning away. He stumbled, the world spinning around him. A pair of arms grabbed him, leaning him against a larger body.

The world was fading; he was detaching from it. He felt he was being enveloped in magic itself. Like whispers of a campfire in mid-winter, strains of lays and prophetic poems sang around him, humming in the magic he was sinking into. Within the songs, one name sounded out, over and over.

_Emrys._

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #

_He was smaller than he'd been in years, huddled inwards while overhead giants argued his fate._

_"We cannot turn away a child, especially in these times."_

_"I want nothing to do with him! Don't you know who he is, what he'll –"_

_"Abandoning a magical orphan would be as sure a death sentence as if we turned him in to Uther ourselves."_

_"But he's –"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_The giants faded in the shadows, and in their place sprung up faceless miniatures._

_"Look it's him."_

_"You can't play with us. My mother says so."_

_The smaller shadowy shapes consolidated into a giant one, leaving only one which remained small. The giant kneeled down to be on eye level with the smaller shadow, placing its hands on the other's shoulders. "Oh my sweet, why would you do something like that?"_

_"It wasn't me! Mordred did it!_

_"Of course he did." The taller figure hugged the smaller. Then it turned to him, its voice venomous. "You! Stay away from my children."_

_A ring of towering shadowy judges materialized around him, cutting him off from the parent and child._

_"Did you hear?"_

_"Is it truly any surprise?"_

_"Why we took him in I'll never…"_

_One shadow broke off from the rest of the group, putting a hand on his shoulders in a show of support. It argued earnestly on his behalf, alone in the face of much opposition. The others were reluctant to accept what it was saying._

_"Is it really... wise to teach magic to that one?"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"But surely there are exceptions, considering… well, you know."_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"But in this case…"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"Please, just take a sip. For me? Please?"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"Morgana, I don't think he's awake."_

_"His eyes are open."_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"But he's not responding. I don't think he can hear us."_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"Well then what should I do? If I…"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"- will choke but…"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_" - liquids to replenish…"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"-get Merlin, Gwen. I'll..."_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

_"And hurry!"_

_"The druids help **all**  those in need."_

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #

Dream and reality bled together like oil pouring into a dish of water. They swirled and – though they tried to mix – they never truly managed it. Slowly, one rose and the other sank, and the two separated of their own accord.

Mordred's return to full consciousness was so gradual he couldn't tell what was dream and what was reality. He felt he'd been woken several times to drink, and that a woman had been tending to him, but he could not summon a clear memory of what had happened.

It was light outside – had so little time passed, or was it the next day already? Disoriented, he looked about the room he was staying in, for the first time lucid enough to note just how lavish it was. There were two people in there with him: Emrys and the witch whom he'd felt a connection with. Tension radiated off them like a smothering blanket on an already blazing day.

They stood staring out an open window, and Mordred realised not all of the tension came from them. His hand rose to the pendant hanging off his chest. The touch of the bespelled wood steadied his own magic. His senses improved tenfold; he was now assaulted by a crashing wave of emotions. He couldn't untangle them; they were rolled tightly like a string tied in writhing knots. He dropped the pendant, unable to handle the sensory assault.

He needn't have bothered with magic to discover what was happening, for the sound of drums echoed from below. It felt like his heart had been plunged into ice. He knew that sound. He heard it in his nightmares.

"People of Camelot," began a voice that Mordred didn't recognize. The speaker wasn't yelling, but the voice carried with an accustomed ease that bordered on arrogance. "The man before you is guilty of using enchantments and magic. Under our law, sentence for this crime is death."

The ice spread to his lungs. Drawing breath in was like being stabbed with a thousand needles. The tyrant king's words washed over him like rain over an already overfilled cup. He couldn't take anything more in, though later on he would be able to recall the gist of what was said. At that moment, though, his mind was filled by just one thought.

Below, he heard a familiar, dear voice call out, "You've let your fear of magic turn to hate. I pity you."

Pure dread filled him; the final nail was hammered in the coffin, laying to rest false hopes.  _« Master? »_

There was no response.

The woman, who'd come over to him, drew him close. She was tense and her breathing was off. Even her warmth and gesture of comfort could not sooth this away.

He picked through the jumble of the crowd outside, finding the distinct tug of his master's magic. He called once again, more focused this time,  _« Master Cerdan? »_

Cerdan's emotions stirred; he'd heard. Immediately, a shield came up between the two of them. Mordred could no longer sense his master.

He called again, sounding frantic even within his own head.

The drums were reaching a climax. After the loudest note of all, they fell silent. There was a whooshing noise as a heavy thin object fell, and then a single grotesque hack.

He shut his eyes as his world shattered and screamed in denial.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #

In his hands was a smooth piece of stained rowan, strung onto a well-worn throng of thin leather. In its center were inlaid grains of yew, forming rings. The larger rings lay in the Four Great Directions, and the smaller in the Four Lesser. His first lessons had revolved around comprehending the power invoked by the wood types and symbols within. Cerdan had been very patient in his explanations, presenting them so that a child as young as Mordred could understand yet never talking down to him.

An old memory rose out of the murky recesses of Mordred's mind.

_"Here. This will help you focus your powers. In time you'll learn to work magic through your own strength, but for your first lessons we'll concentrate on having you learn to harness the power within this amulet."_

_He hesitated to take it. "Are you really going to be teaching me, then? The others told me…"_

_"The Ollam and Council of Elders have given their approval." Cerdan interrupted, his tone brooking no arguments. "The opinions of anyone else are irrelevant."_

_Mordred took the necklace, placing it around his neck slowly, half expecting to be stopped. Cerdan smiled in encouragement. "You're my apprentice now, so if anyone gives you trouble, refer them back to me, got it?"_

_"Yes, master."_

Mordred turned over the amulet in his hands, more memories rising. He'd worn it every day since his apprenticeship began, though now for reasons more sentimental than practical. He'd grown out of strict dependence on its amplifying powers at a nigh unheard of age, causing a flurry of tense whispers that would stop whenever the adults saw he'd noticed. But they couldn't always notice him before he'd heard more than they wanted him to.

_"Mordred?" Cerdan asked. "What are you doing out here?"_

_The children of the camp often went wandering through the forest, gathering food or else just playing around. Mordred, who had few friends, was well-known for disappearing off on his own for hours at a time. Still, it was getting dark now; Cerdan must have been worried when he didn't come home for supper._

_"Is it true?" he was fixated on the low hanging tree branch he was sitting on. His finger traced the grooves in the bark, and he followed the progress of bugs scurrying in the cracks. On his lap was the necklace he'd been given years before. This was the first time he'd taken it off, aside from bathing and sleeping._

_He determinedly did not look at Cerdan._

_Cerdan was apparently determined not to understand Mordred's meaning, even though he had to have seen this moment coming. "Is what true?"_

_"What they're saying about me. About what I'm destined to do."_

_There was a long pause. A squirrel grabbed an acorn from a branch overheard. A fly flew into an old cobweb and struggled to break free. An ant wandered onto Mordred's arm. He flicked it off._

_When Cerdan responded, Mordred could tell from his voice that he was troubled. "What did they tell you?"_

_"Enough to understand why they hate me; I'm the destroyer of all we long for."_

_"Don't think of yourself like that!" Cerdan put a hand on Mordred's shoulder, his grip a bit too tight._

_"Why not? I am Mordred - meant to be the Doom of Albion, after all." The fly's futile efforts were slowing now, as it exhausted itself._

_"Being Mordred means what you make it mean."_

_"You can't escape destiny." At the edge of the web, an eight-legged shadow crept forwards._

_The bough shook; Cerdan had settled down beside him. He physically turned Mordred away from the spider's web, forcing him to look at him. "You're right; you cannot escape your destiny. For as long as you live, it will be there, waiting. In the end, no matter what twists and turns and detours you may take, the destination you must arrive at will remain. You will never be able to escape this."_

_"But Mordred," he searched deep into his eyes, through to his soul. Sincere conviction was in each word. "You can choose which route you take to arrive there. Whether you choose a road that is long or short, hard or easy, paved with good or ill deeds – that is up to you."_

_Cool, smooth wood was pressed into his hands, his fingers closing around it automatically. "And no seer can ever take that away from you."_

"Excuse me, sorry," a female voice said. Mordred let the amulet fall back to his chest and looked up.

Guinevere, the maid of the lady who was sheltering him, held out a bowl of soup. She looked prepared to spoonfeed him, but Mordred took the bowl from her, in no mood to be parented. His hands wobbled when he brought the spoon up to his mouth. Guinevere hovered anxiously while he ate, obviously not confidant that Mordred wouldn't accidentally scald himself.

The food had no taste to him. It felt heavy on his tongue, and he had to force it down his throat by telling himself he needed to regain his strength. Cerdan sacrificed himself so that Mordred could get away. He couldn't let that be for nothing.

A knock came at the door. Mordred scrambled as far back as he could and Guinevere drew the curtains shut. "Who is it?"

"It's me, Merlin," came the muffled reply. Guinevere's silhouette against the curtains sagged, _relief_ pouring out from her. The sound of brisk footsteps echoed across the room. A door was unlatched, and soon afterwards hastily relatched.

"You're late. Where have you been?"

"Sorry, Arthur's been in a bad mood lately. He's giving me ludicrous amounts of chores, even by his standards. I got away as soon as I could.  Luckily Tyr agreed to cover the most time-consuming one for me, or I’d be stuck in the stables for the next couple of hours.”

Two sets of footsteps approached where he was hiding. "Where's Morgana?"

"Having dinner with the king. She couldn't get out of it. I'm keeping watch for her, until she gets back."

The curtains drew back, and Emrys stepped through. He had a large bag slung over one shoulder, which he was rummaging in. He knelt on the floor beside Mordred, pulling a bottle of white-green paste and a brush out of his bag with a satisfied noise.

"There we go, I've got it." He commented to himself. He unstoppered the bottle, addressing Mordred. "Now, I know this stings, but just bear with it. We can't afford to let you get an infection."

Emrys unwound the bandage binding Mordred's wound, handing it over to Guinevere, who added it to a small basket of cloths that was hidden nearby. Mordred steeled himself against flinching – this was the fourth time Emrys had redressed his wound, and he knew by now what to expect. Emrys kept a careful eye on Guinevere, dabbing at the wound half-heartedly with the paste. After she'd walked off with the laundry, though, he muttered, "Ic hæle þina þrowunga."

The paste glowed momentarily, and Mordred could feel the tingle of healing magic settling into his wound through it.  Emrys caught Mordred's eye and winked, then resumed dabbing at the wound. By the time Guinevere returned with the wet laundry, Emrys was rewinding new bandages around it. Gwen started hanging the strips of cloth up to dry, and Mordred knew if he wanted to speak he'd have to do it soon, or lose his chance.

Working up his nerve, he said simply,  _« Thank you, Emrys. »_

Emrys' hands paused in their binding. Recognition and puzzlement radiated from him.  _« Emrys? Why do you call me that? »_

Mordred felt something rekindle deep inside him, something that felt like the beginnings of hope. Did Emrys not know?  _« Among my people, that is your name. »_

_« You mean Myrddin Emrys? »_  Emrys asked, apparently having fitted whatever was puzzling him into his own answer, which he wanted affirmed.

_« No, just Emrys. »_  Mordred replied, not sure where the extra name came from.  _« To us, you have always been known by one name. »_

_« But why? »_ Emrys was internally wrestling with something, as Mordred had apparently destroyed whatever answer he'd cobbled together.  _« What does it mean? How do you know me? »_

Mordred was positive now; Emrys didn't know his destiny. Which meant he didn't know Mordred's. Enlightenment was like a blaze that threw everything into sharp relief, including the unwelcome. This was why Emrys was being kind to him, why he was helping him despite their paths being destined to collide; he didn't know they were meant to be foes.

Whispers of adults echoed from his past, a myriad of pursed lips and averted eyes that tracked his every movement despite being determined not to see him.  Emrys continued looking at him directly at him, nothing but a wounded boy reflecting in his compassionate eyes.  Panicked resolution pumped through Mordred's veins; Emrys must not discover the truth, or he would turn against him.  Mordred must not let him find out who they were destined to become.

Emrys must have been desperate for answers, though, for he forgot to keep their conversation from unmagical ears. "Speak to me."

"I don't know if he can," Guinevere said, distracting Emrys. He turned away to look at her, and Mordred blessed her unknowing help. "He hasn't said anything so far – don't druids have their own language? I'm not sure he speaks Common."

"He does," Emrys responded automatically.

"Really? How do you know?"

Emrys looked blank for a moment; obviously, he could not tell her of their magical conversations. Then he started speaking very quickly as if to make up for the delay. "That's - Yesterday, the other druid spoke Common. We all heard him."

"But he came to buy supplies," Guinevere pointed out. "He needed to know Common to make the deal - there's no guarantee that other druids speak it."

"They do."

Guinevere gave Emrys an inquisitive look at this blanket assertion, a slight furrow of her brows in the face of Emrys' confidence. "How would you know?"

Emrys took a long while to respond. His emotions churned like rapids over rocks in some internal conflict – over what, Mordred didn't know. He turned away from Guinevere, who had finished hanging up the laundry and was now crouched beside them, looking more bemused the longer Emrys made her wait.

Emrys finished tying up the bandage on Mordred's arm, fussing with the knot more than he had the other times. Then his gaze wandered, settling on Mordred's tattoo. He stared at it, his chaotic thoughts settling.  He closed his eyes, and spoke.

"Because before I came to Camelot, I knew a druidess."

Guinevere's eyes widened. Mordred felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. Through a buzz of panic, odd words of ancient prophecies jumped out at him. All druids knew them; which had the woman shared? How much did she tell Emrys?

"She didn't talk much; she was very shy," Emrys continued on blithely, and Mordred could breathe again.

Emrys opened his eyes and looked to Guinevere, pleading with her. "But kind. Very selfless - she helped me out a lot."

Emrys sounded more like he was insisting on the mystery woman's good qualities than describing them. He was close enough that Mordred could hear the absence of his breathing as he waited for his friend's reaction – as if the fear pouring off him through their unsevered mental link wasn't clue enough.

Guinevere responded just a bit too slow. "She sounds wonderful."

"She was. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here now." Emrys breathed deeply, but then seemed to choke on his words. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply once, twice, and then opened them again, posture going rigid with determination. "She protected me many times – with magic."

No one spoke. No one moved. They were waiting – all three of them – for somebody else to react first. The moment dragged on, the silence deafening, as Emrys and Guinevere were frozen looking each other in the eye while Mordred looked on.

Guinevere was the first to react. She looked away, her eyes darting around the room until they fixated on the half-eaten bowl of soup set down to Mordred's right. He could see the excuse occur to her, and sure enough she lunged forwards for the bowl, turning away quickly.

"This must be stone-cold by now, I'll just go heat it up, shall I?" she ducked through the curtains, her silhouette moving to the fireplace in a half-jog that was trying to look like a walk.

Emrys jerked his gaze from her retreating silhouette, returning back to the already finished bandage. Disappointment hung around him like a smothering cloud. "Oh – er, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.” He started cramming supplies back into his satchel. “No one likes cold food, right? Yeah… and the boy needs to eat. I mean, lukewarm food won't tempt him enough to regain his strength."

He punctuated his babbling with a pained laugh, his face contorted in more of a grimace than a smile. He closed his satchel and slung it over his shoulders as he rose so fast he nearly tripped over his own legs. He stepped through the curtains and his footsteps echoed quickly across the floor tiles. He called a hasty goodbye, and then there was the sound of the door opening to signal his abrupt departure.

Once the door latched quietly behind him, Mordred realised for the time being he'd avoided having to explain the druids’ knowledge of Emrys.

A few minutes later, Guinevere returned with his bowl of soup, handing it over with a tight smile. "You might have to blow on it a bit."

Mordred heeded her advice. His spoon wasn't wobbling now; most likely due to Emrys' slow-acting healing spell. The soup still tasted like nothing to him, but all the delicacies of the world would taste like ash until he was free of Uther's abode.

While he ate, Guinevere fiddled with her skirts and picked at a loose thread in her sleeve, studiously avoiding his gaze. The confusion rolling off of her in waves, rising and falling and rising again, was dizzying.  He couldn't help but pity her; her worldview had been turned on its head multiple times these last few days, and to varying extents it was because of him.

Guinevere was so lost to her thoughts that she didn't notice when he'd finished eating. Mordred waited for a moment, wondering if he should say something to get her attention. He really should; it was the most logical thing to do, and she looked like she would welcome a distraction.

He braced himself to speak to her. He was going to do it. He could do it. He preferred using mind-speech simply because only those with magic could use it; there was no chance of Uther's men overhearing something incriminating. He could use normal speech perfectly well, though he did so rarely, and only with others in the camp.

He hadn't spoken to a non-magical person in years.

Vague, blurred memories from when he was scarcely more than a toddler rose in his mind. He was holding the hand of someone he trusted. A high voice wavering with age and some emotion he’d been too young to recognise was telling him to be a good boy and wait for her, and to say nothing strange while she was gone.  The withered, bony hand pulled away, and she disappeared into the distance. He was sitting, under the baking hot sun, watching the shadows grow.  Darkness descended, with only the pale light of the stars to see by.  He shivered despite the lingering heat, hunching inwards where he sat, waiting still.  Eventually sleep had overtaken him, and when the rising sun woke him, she still hadn’t returned.

Mordred deflated and swallowed, losing his nerve. Silently, he held out the emptied bowl to the maid. She startled as it entered her line of vision, and looked up. Mordred smiled, trying to convey gratitude with just a look. He must have done a half-decent job, because she softened slightly and the crescendo of her turmoil fell to a murmur.

He shut his eyes and rested, clutching his pendant, while Guinevere cleaned across the room from him, leaving the curtain open so they could see each other. The silence between them wasn't uneasy which – considering all the havoc Mordred's mere presence here meant for both their lives – was the best he could expect.

The door opened, but before Mordred's heart had time for more than half a stutter, a now-familiar voice was calling out in annoyance, "Uther really is unbelievable; even  _Arthur_  sees this situation for how ludicrous it all is!"

The curtains drew back, and the lady’s face softened. "You're awake.  How are you feeling?" She leaned over, placing the back of her hand against his forehead. He could tell he didn't have a fever by the relief on her features. He smiled back at her, feeling the same connection well up between them as on their first meeting.

Lady Morgana, as she was called, had scarcely left his side.  He’d doze off with her beside him, and awakened to her still there.  When he’d woken earlier to find her gone, he’d panicked, thinking something had happened to her because of him.  He’d tried to stand, to go looking for her, and it was only when Guinevere had hurried over to assure him Morgana had only left for dinner that he’d calmed down.

The warmth of her hand against his head was like being close to Cerdan, but different in a way he couldn’t express.  Morgana’s hand travelled upwards to stroke soothing circles against his scalp, the slow rhythm hypnotic in its repetitions.  He closed his eyes, suddenly tired as though the exhaustion stalking him had noticed his guard was down and pounced.  Normally he found close physical contact perturbing, but with Morgana it just felt natural, comforting even.  Perhaps this was what having a mother felt like.

Morgana and her maid chatted, about people and things that he didn't care about. Their simmering emotions beneath spoke that their lightheartedness was a show; they were trying to act like nothing was wrong to sooth him into forgetting his problems.  He leaned back, letting Morgana's comforting warmth and the light sound of high voices lull him off to sleep.

In the following days, Mordred felt his strength ebb back into him again. His three guardians seemed to be arranging the escape plans when he was asleep, for he often heard snippets of conversations about tunnels and finding druids before they'd realised he'd woken.  He learned the basics of their plan by feigning sleep around the time he knew Emrys would be coming by to change his bandages.  Sure enough, once all three were together and he was confirmed to be unconscious, they started speaking.

"Did you find the entrance to those caves Gaius mentioned?"

"Yeah, though Arthur is now under the impression that I have the directional sense of a blind boar. He caught me wandering around the lower levels of the castle, and I had to tell him I got lost."

"Do they really lead out to the woods?"

"They do. I checked, and there's been no cave-ins."

"Fantastic. All right, I'll take the boy tonight.  Gwen, get the supplies ready. Merlin, be waiting for us in the caves to show us the way out."

"Yeah, about that... I've been thinking - I could take the boy back to his people."

One of the women sighed.  "We've discussed this, Merlin.  I'm the king's ward; if I get caught, he's more likely to spare me."

"But we don't know where the druids are - for all we know, it might take days to find them! If you go missing for too long, the king will notice.  If I go missing for too long, Arthur will probably just blame laziness and send me to the stocks for skiving."

"I don't think he's that unobservant."

"Arthur wouldn't notice weird behaviour if it smacked him across the face."

"How would you know?"

"... er, well... he did believe me about getting lost; honestly, who gets lost in a place they've lived and worked in for seven months?"

"Still, it's an awful big risk. I could cover for Morgana for a bit, but there's no one to cover for you."

"Gaius won't report that I'm missing, and Arthur won't think anything's strange for quite some time."

And so they argued, back and forth, while Mordred lay still with his eyes shut and listened in to plans they obviously felt he was too young to have to worry about.  As Emrys’ logic began to sway the two women, worry took root in Mordred’s chest, slowly constricting.  If Emrys took him back to his people, then the others would surely make him aware of more than was good for Mordred.  Yet Mordred could not protest their plans with no explanation; they were risking their lives to help him and wouldn’t entertain what seemed like a child’s whims over sensible reasons for who was filling what role in ferreting him out of the city. 

They decided, in the end, that Guinevere would get everything ready, Morgana would take him to a place called the Caves of Uhelgoad (after Emrys showed her the entrance to them), and Emrys would then take him through the passageways to the forests surrounding Camelot and search for the druids.  Mordred didn’t let himself think about the last step of the plan; he’d drive himself insane overthinking it.  There was nothing for it; he’d just have to find an opportunity to shake Emrys off before they reached the other druids.

Once the adults had settled all the details, Emrys came to "wake" Mordred, removing his bandages to show a scabbed over and half-healed wound. If either of the women thought the wound was healing extraordinarily quickly, nothing in their words or emotional states indicated it.

That night, he and Morgana slipped silently through the halls of the castle, dodging guard patrols and descending stair after stair.  His pulse hammered in his ears with each step he took and he held tight to Morgana's hand the whole while, pressing close against her.  They at last came to a door of metal bars that looked disturbingly like the door to a dungeon.   Voices echoed from above and two silhouettes of helmeted men with pole-arms stretched around the bend.  Hurriedly, Morgana wretched the door open, ushering Mordred in first.  They raced down the darkened stairway, eager to put distance between themselves and the approaching guards.

In their haste, they forgot to close the door.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _To be continued…_
> 
> Yay, Mordred! Also… yay, Kilgharrah not being there to screw up everything!
> 
> As I was brainstorming how to write Mordred it really hit me: Mordred was raised by people who practically worship Merlin as the Druidic messiah and have foreknowledge about the future. And so then I started to wonder…
> 
> Mordred being an empath comes from his disconcerting staring. That kid definitely knows more than he should.


	7. 1x07 - The Meaning You Give It (Part 2)

Arthur was pulled from his night patrol of the lower town, by order of the king.  To his great annoyance, the guard sent to fetch him avoided his questions on why with a standard, “It’s not my place to say.”

He was taken to the council chambers, where only his father and Morgana were in attendance – the other members of the court presumably asleep in bed.  The atmosphere was strange; Morgana was standing with her shoulders squared and chin jutting before the throne, facing Uther rather than to his right.  On the throne, Uther was stewing in intense rage, red faced and breathing deeply as though he’d run out of air from excessive shouting.

Neither had looked over when he walked in, so Arthur announced himself with a pointed, “You wanted to see me, Father?”

“Yes,” Uther said, still glaring at Morgana as if he was trying to bore a hole through her.  “I wanted to confirm something about your hunt for the druid.  You reported you’ve searched every room in this castle, is that right?”

“Yes, every room in the castle, every house in the lower town.”

“And Lady Morgana’s room, I assume, was not exempted from this?”

“Of course I -” a horrible, dreadful suspicion took root.  “I searched it, though I… may have been a bit less thorough than usual.”

A curtained enclose and woman’s taunt replayed in his mind, in a new light.  Surely it couldn’t be.

Uther rose from his throne, looming over Morgana from the raised dais.  “Trust – it’s a funny thing, isn’t it, Morgana?  Given to people we care about and believe in, extended because we trust them to be worthy of it.  Trust them not to use it against us.”

He slammed his fist into the arm of his throne, yelling, “And this is how you’d repaid that trust!”

Uther strode forwards, down the dais until scarcely a foot separated him and Morgana.  “All this time, you've been hiding the boy in my own palace!  How could you betray me like this?”

Morgana stood her ground, refusing to be swayed by remorse, if she in fact felt any.  How he hadn’t guessed it was Morgana harbouring the druid, Arthur couldn’t now fathom.  Morgana was the one who protested every execution - every one except the latest, when she’d been uncharacteristically silent.  That should have been a clue that there was something strange going on – of course she’d not want to risk igniting Uther’s anger against her, when his attention was exactly what she needed to avoid.

His father’s anger was rising in response to Morgana’s unrepentance.   Arthur could scarcely bear to watch the argument taking place, and he wished he could avert his ears as he had his eyes.  He mercifully was allowed to remain in silence, separate from the fight, at least until Uther dragged him into the midst of it with, “Make arrangements for the boy to be executed tomorrow morning.”

And despite Morgana’s pleading, Uther remained adamant in this judgement.  Arthur felt like his tongue was coated in ash when he replied, “Yes, Father.”

Morgana was escorted out by two guards and Uther retired to his chambers.  Arthur, for his part, went to the dungeons to inform the guards of the boy’s sentence, seeing the elusive druid for the first time.

He was younger than he’d pictured.  It was one thing to be given a description of the boy’s general appearance, it was quite another to see a child huddled inwards for warmth in the cold dungeons, separated from freedom by bars of heavy iron.  Arthur could feel the boy watching him, and despite his efforts to keep his voice low he had a feeling the boy heard every word.

Arthur made a grave mistake then; he glanced over and met his eyes.  All the way back to his room, he could feel those light blue orbs, so prominent in a child’s face, staring back at him.  He hesitated at the door, one hand on the handle yet unable to pull it open.  He would be getting no sleep tonight, not with those eyes staring back at him.  He let go, and turned on heel, going to his father’s chambers instead.

He didn’t know what he expected, but Uther would not reconsider the sentence.  All of Arthur’s arguments broke like waves upon a rock; just noise and a dampening of the mood, but otherwise enacting no change.  He was pointedly dismissed not long after, and returned to his room, violently throwing open the door to vent his frustration.

Inside his room was another unwelcome surprise the night had to offer him, again brought about by Morgana.  She straightened up from where she had clearly been waiting for him, and without hesitation started asking for his help in her druid rescuing mission.

“I know you believe your father’s wrong to execute him.”

He could still see the boy’s wide, solemn eyes staring back at him, looking too old to fit his childish face.  He’d known then, looking into them, that the boy knew what was being built even now in the courtyard, and what was in store for him come the next rising of the sun.  He’d never seen such despair in the face of a child.

Arthur carefully avoided looking at Morgana, not wanting to have two sets of eyes haunting his sleep.  He couldn’t stop himself from hearing her, though, as she continued pleading with him to break the law.  To betray his king, his father.

“If I know you at all, you won’t stand by and let this happen.” She said, like he had any say in the matter.

His father had made up his mind; to go against it now was treason.  He’d be betraying everything he stood for, all for one child whom he didn’t know in the slightest.  Perhaps his father was right; children could not stay children forever.  If let go now this boy might return as a man, with good reason to hate the Pendragons.  If the boy was returned to his people, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t take up the black arts, and be corrupted by them.  All sorcerers had to start out as children.

_But he hasn’t done anything_ , his conscious screamed, warring with all the logical arguments his father could give.  _How can he be punished for things that he_ might _do?_

“Please.  If you won’t do this for the boy, then do it for me.”

Morgana stared straight at him, and he couldn’t turn his head away from her now.  Her eyes overlapped with the boy’s, and he felt cornered.  He couldn’t say whether the boy truly deserved his punishment – his heart said no, yet his head couldn’t stop cycling through his father’s arguments.  But Morgana felt he didn’t, felt it strongly enough that she’d bet her life on it.  He might not always get on with Morgana, but he trusted her, even after she’d tricked him.  If she wholeheartedly believed this to be the right thing to do, then he’d quiet the voices in his head, and follow his heart alongside her.

“What do you have in mind?”

They dug out maps from his drawers, looking over layouts of the dungeons and planning how to best go about this.  “This tunnel here, it looks like it leads to beyond the city walls.”

Arthur retraced the tunnel to its origin, relieved by what he saw.  “The entrance in is the burial vaults.  That’s easy to get to from the dungeons.”

How to slip past the guards was a more pressing problem, one that took them about half an hour to sort out.  Once they’d found a way, there was only a few more details to iron out before they could start their plan.

The door opened, and Arthur hurriedly covered the maps.  To his relief it was just Merlin, who he could easily order away.  To his surprise, Morgana stopped him.

“It’s alright; I trust Merlin.”

There was something strange there between the two of them that made Arthur pause for a moment.  He wasn’t aware that Merlin and Morgana were even friends, let alone were on good enough terms to trust with conspiracy.  Reluctantly, he beckoned Merlin over, explaining to him what they were going to do.

Merlin instantly objected, almost in a panic to convince them otherwise.  Arthur wasn’t too surprised – Merlin always tried to shoot down any ideas that were remotely exciting - but Morgana looked as though she’d been betrayed.

“Why are you so against this?  Do you want the boy to die!”

“Of course not,” offense coloured each word.  “It’s just…” Merlin’s eyes flickered, and he couldn’t seem to find the words to finish his sentence.

“Look,” Arthur cut him off.  The boy’s execution was only a few hours away; they didn’t have time to wait for Merlin to finish blithering around and make up his mind.  “We know what we’re doing.  All you have to do is bring my horse and open the grate.  _I’m_ the one who’s springing the boy.”

“It’s suicide – you’ll never manage it.”

 “I know what I’m doing.”  To prove a point, Arthur pulled his key ring from his belt and jingled them in front of Merlin.  “Look, I’ve got the keys to the cells _right here_.”

Only, on closer look, he didn’t.  He had all the keys on his ring _except_ the one that would open the doors of the dungeons. 

“Merlin,” Morgana said accusatively, having reached some conclusion while Arthur just stared at his keys in disbelief.  “Did you take the key?”

Merlin shifted in place guiltily, avoiding their eyes.  Arthur for the first time noticed Merlin had his hands tucked behind his back.  Arthur grabbed one of them, jerking it to the front and forcibly unfurling Merlin’s fist against his spluttered protestations.  Sure enough, there was the key.

How did he get it?  All the keys were on Arthur’s ring earlier when he’d gone to visit the dungeons, so he must have gotten it afterwards.  But he hadn’t been around Arthur until when he entered the room just now, and then he hadn’t approached Arthur at all – Merlin was barely within arms’ reach, how could he have possibly weaseled the key off of Arthur without either him or Morgana noticing?

“Hang on,” Arthur said, something else occurring to him.  “If you have the key then you must be planning to break the boy out.  So then why the hell are you trying to stop Morgana and me from helping!”

Merlin looked as if he wished he could vanish into thin air.  “Well there’s no point risking all our necks.”

“No point?” Arthur asked, unable to believe Merlin’s stupidity despite being exposed to it on a daily basis.  “ _How_ , may I ask, _Mer_ lin, do you plan to get the boy out of this castle on your own!”

Merlin pursued his lips as though holding in words, and remained silent.  Arthur took that as a sign of defeat.  “We need to do this together.  We – Morgana and I – have already worked out a way to get the boy to safety.  We don’t need you messing everything up, so are you with us, or not?”

And though Merlin begrudgingly agreed _with you_ , Arthur was still doubtful all through their planning.  The time came for Morgana to go apologise to Uther, saying she couldn’t sleep because of the guilt plaguing her for betraying him, and Arthur and Merlin to go fulfill their roles in the plan.

It was easy enough to knock the guards out with a combination of herbs Merlin stole from Gaius’ store.  The child looked wary initially, but quickly took Arthur’s hand and followed him through the underground corridors to the burial vault.

Despite Arthur’s half-formed fears, sprung from Merlin’s reluctance to cooperate, there was someone waiting there and the grate already opened.  It just wasn’t Merlin.  It was an old man, with long straggly white hair and a beard that fell to his waist.

Arthur drew his sword.  “Who the hell are you?”

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #

With the tip of a sword hovering right in front of his heart, Merlin was beginning to wonder at the wisdom of showing up in disguise.  Not that he’d had much choice; Uther had upped security after Morgana was caught, and the city was crawling with guards.  He’d had to give up on getting Arthur’s horse completely - there was no way he could make off with it unseen.  Even then he’d been stopped at sword point four times.  He’d had to use magic to knock out the guards blocking his way, and after the second time he’d had enough of trying to desperately hide his face before the guards identified him.  Using the spare flask of potion he carried on himself at all times since the mess with the griffin, he’d aged himself by sixty years.  A good thing too, for the third guard to stop him had shone a torch in his face before demanding he stop.

Still, he now had to explain to Arthur why there was an old man there, instead of the young one he was expecting.  “Well…”

This would have been so much easier if Arthur and Morgana had just stayed put, and not messed up his plans by being like over-eager three-year-olds trying to help yet only making things more complicated.  If he could have just used magic to spring the boy from the dungeons on his own – or just been the one to take him out of the castle in the first place, like he’d originally wanted – then they’d be out in the forest looking for the other druids already, not stuck in all this mess.

“Are you deaf?  Who are you?  Identify yourself!”

Merlin cursed himself; in all the hours he’d spent trying out disguises, why had he never thought of what to use as a fake name?

“Emrys,” piped up an unexpected voice to Arthur’s side, drawing both of their attention.  The boy shrank back at bit at the sudden attention, taking a moment before reiterating quietly.  “His name’s Emrys.”

Merlin seized the boy’s help gratefully.  “That’s right.  My name’s Emrys.”

Arthur looked from the boy to Merlin and back, incredulous.  “You know each other?”  The boy nodded.  Arthur lowered his sword but didn’t sheath it.  “Are you a druid, then?”

“Yes.” That seemed the easiest story to go with.  “I’ve come for the boy, to return him to our people.”

Arthur’s eyes flickered around, taking in more of the situation now that he thought he knew who Merlin was.  His grip tightened on his sword; whatever he saw, he didn’t like.  “You don’t have a grappling hook or rope or anything of that sort – how did you get the grate open?”

Merlin froze, stunned that Arthur was being that observant.  In the months since they’d met, Arthur had missed many more telling signs of magic than this.  Was it because he was faced with a druid, someone he expected magic from, that Arthur was able to recognise the signs of it?

Arthur’s grip on his sword tightened at Merlin’s pause, and his expression darkened.  Panicking, Merlin started yelling, desperately erecting the veneer of a crotchety old man to hide behind, “Questions, questions, _soooooo_ many questions!  What do you think this is, time for icebreakers and little quizzing games?  Let’s get a move on already!”

The sound of distant echoing voices and heavy footsteps approaching accentuated Merlin’s point, and with a glance backward Arthur reluctantly sheathed his sword.  Still, when he climbed through he kept a wary eye on Merlin. 

They started to run for the forest, Merlin lagging behind the others.  He grimaced, and urged his groaning old bones on.  Still the distance between him and the other two continued to widen.  Arthur glanced back, and stopped, hissing,

“Hurry it up, will you!”

The deep heaving breaths accompanying his sprinting left his old lungs burning from the strain, but still Merlin pushed himself to retort,  “When old age catches up to you, we’ll see how fast you can go!”

He immediately regretted wasting breath arguing, as he was virtually doubled over now, trying to suck in enough air to keep him going until they reached the treeline, at least. 

The sounds of the guards’ approach echoed from the tunnel they’d exited, ringing deafeningly through the silent night.  There was no way they’d be able to reach the treeline before the guards came across the open grate.  Unless Merlin gave up on speed and cheated a little. 

Merlin stopped, clutched his chest with one of his gnarled hands, and started a fake fit of violent coughing, squeezing his eyes shut to hide the condemning glow.  In between coughs, he muttered a spell to relock the grate, “Fyrbendum faest. þu benda faest.”

Magic warmed his irises.  He felt it take hold in the distance and released his concentration, opening his now-normal eyes.  The boy looked less tense than before, obviously either having heard Merlin’s spell or felt the magic and guessed at its intent.  As Arthur was not currently trying to cut his head off, Merlin took that as a sign that he hadn’t noticed what Merlin had just done.

Unfortunately, Arthur’s limited awareness of their situation meant he still felt the tension of the pursued.  “If you wanted to get a move on, then get a move on!  The guards will be on us any second now!”

Not hardly; unless they’d thought ahead to have someone with grapping hook and rope meet them outside that obscure tunnel.  Since that seemed unlikely, Merlin wasn’t too concerned about the beleaguered guards catching up anytime soon.  With any luck, they hadn’t been close enough to see the grate had been open in the first place and had turned around; after all, coming to an empty dead end with a locked grate, the easiest assumption would be that the escapee had fled in a different direction. 

“You think you know everything,” Merlin grumbled, resuming a light walk. “Well, you try running when you’re old and arthritic, and we’ll see how fast you can go!”

“We don’t have time for this!” Arthur looked ready to tear his hair out at Merlin’s plodding pace. 

Something absolutely delicious occurred to Merlin then.  “Then perhaps you should carry me.”

“What?” Arthur asked, gobsmacked some random old man would dare say something like that to him.

“Unless you’d rather get caught by your father’s men…”

Arthur had an angry bulge in his neck, a few truly impressive blood veins popping up to their full glory.  “Fine,” he bit out, crouching down to let Merlin climb on his back.  “If it means we can get away sometime _tonight_!”

Merlin climbed on like Arthur was a stack of hay, making no effort whatsoever to keep his fingers and knees from digging into him.  Arthur’s muscles were all tense; doubtlessly the prince was struggling to hold back a veritable verbal explosion at this treatment.  Once Merlin was secured on his back, Arthur started to jog.

Without an old man dragging the pace, it didn’t take them long to reach the treeline.  The lingering tension melted away now that the branches and darkness concealed them from view of the citadel.  Merlin closed his eyes, extending his senses to reach his locking spell in the distance.  To his relief, it was still in effect; the guards either hadn’t managed to get the grate open or hadn’t tried, assuming the dead end meant their lead was a false trail. 

Merlin, rather enjoying himself now that pursuit seemed unlikely, opened his eyes again.  The first thing he saw was the back of Arthur’s head.  It was then that it really hit him that anything that “Emrys” did could not be traced back to Merlin by his master.  A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth, and, on a whim, Merlin dug his heels into Arthur’s side like he would to a slow-moving horse.

Arthur came to a full stop, apparently so stunned he forgot the imminent danger he thought they were in.  “Did you just _kick_ me?”

From beside them came a choked noise, like a laugh aborted.  The boy’s hand flew to his mouth, covering it, but couldn’t take back the amused little noise he’d already made.  This was the first time the boy showed the smallest sign of even momentary cheer. Feeling absurdly pleased with himself, Merlin winked.

He quipped back to the prince, “Now who’s wasting time?” Kicking Arthur again, he called out, “Onwards, Fleetfeet, my trusty steed!”

“Call me Fleetfeet again, and I’ll…”

“What would you rather, then?  Starrunner?  Moonsparkle?  Featherflower?  Starsparklefeather Flowerrunner?”

“Shut up or I’ll drop you.”

“Do you have no respect for your elders, you green-bellied whippersnapper?”

“I… green-bellied?  That’s not a word.”

“I think you’ll find it is.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

“Define ‘everyone’.”

“What are you, two?  I would have thought that a prince would have had an abundance of education, but very well, I shall oblige:  everyone, you see, means every - which in turn means each individual or part of a group without exception - person, that being…”

Arthur veered to whack Merlin’s head against a low hanging branch.  “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

Merlin rubbed his sore head, grumbling.  He tried to ignore the cockiness practically screaming out in Arthur’s posture and the muffled laughter coming from the young druid’s direction.  They continued on in silence until even the highest walls of the city were completely blocked by the thick overgrowth.  Then Arthur asked,

“How far until we join up with the other druids?”

“Um…” Merlin stole a glance at the boy, who looked away without answering Merlin’s unvoiced pleas for intervention.

Taking any longer to reply would look suspicious, so Merlin invented, “It’s against our laws to allow outsiders to learn the location of our dwelling place.”

Arthur didn’t question this, perhaps seeing the sense in such a law for people in hiding.  Instead he frowned, and said, “Wait… if I can’t come with you, then why am I still carrying you?”

Merlin blanked.  The answer, obviously, was that Merlin hadn’t thought that far ahead when he’d bullied Arthur into comporting himself like a pack animal.

He recovered quickly though, his retort a bit rushed in an attempt to compensate for the slight pause. “What a harebrained thing to ask!  You are still carrying me simply because you haven’t put me down yet!”

Arthur released Merlin’s legs and abruptly leaned backwards.  “Allow me to correct that!”

Merlin’s loose grip was shaken by the unexpected movement.  He tumbled away, landing groaning on the ground.  The fall would have stung mildly in his regular form, but in his elderly one he felt as though he’d fallen from a tree.

“Is there nothing in the knight’s code about how to treat your elders?” Merlin groaned, rubbing his aching limbs as he clambered to his feet.

“That would fall under “protect the weak and defenceless”.  For you, I’m protecting you from the results of my temper, should I have to carry on like a mule for a second longer.  It was to spare you greater repercussions - you should be grateful.”

“Oh yes, I’m _overwhelmed_ with gratitude, _my Lord_ ,” Merlin muttered, wiping dirt off the robes he’d borrowed from Gaius. 

Arthur’s head tilted a bit and his eyebrows narrowed, like one who’d encountered a familiar object yet couldn’t quite come up with its name.  Merlin’s lighthearted gripes evaporated; had that last barb been too much like himself? 

Merlin beckoned the boy over, and half-turned, eager to move on before Arthur had more time to analyse whatever had flagged his attention.  “We’ll be going then, no sense delaying.”

Arthur snapped out of whatever he’d been thinking, looking startled at this reminder of their common purpose: to help the boy.  He stood there awkwardly, like one left dangling with no clear idea about what to do next. 

He looked to the boy.  “Is that it?  I don’t even know your name.”

The boy hesitated, and Merlin couldn’t blame him.  There was a power in names; they could mean the difference between Merlin the bumbling manservant and Emrys the druid, between Keith the taciturn peasant and Balinor the dragonlord.  Names were more recognisable than faces – spreading quicker and more freely without necessitating so much as a glimpse of the ones they labeled. If Merlin had been in the boy’s place, he too would not want to be known by name by Uther Pendragon’s son. 

On the other end, it was surprising that Arthur wanted to find out something so personal of one of his father’s enemies.  There was a league of difference between having mercy on your adversaries, and daring to acknowledge them as individual human beings.  Merlin should know – his first days in Camelot had been caught between the two.  Once the ones you labelled _those people_ were given individual names, it was harder to remain detached from them.  Merlin’s own life had been much simpler when _the men in red_ had been a nameless mass being of terror.

At long last, the boy replied, “My name’s Mordred.”

Arthur nodded slightly in solemn acknowledgement, like he had an inkling of some of the risks the boy was taking in trusting his name to him, or of the headaches he was bringing upon himself by giving one of his father’s adversaries a name rather than a label.

“Good luck, Mordred.”

Taking that as a farewell, Merlin and the boy turned to go.  Arthur called out after them.  “You must never let it be known that it was I who helped you.”

Unable to let that pass unremarked upon, even given the weighty moment still lingering in the air, Merlin called back one last gibe. “Oh, well it’s a good thing you told me _that_ ; I was planning on blabbing to Uther the next time he invited me ‘round for drinks!  Good job you warned me – after all, what would a hunted man know about keeping his mouth shut and being discreet?”

Arthur didn’t answer back, though Merlin strongly suspected he hadn’t done himself any favours come morning, when the prince would already be in a foul mood due to exhaustion, made only fouler by the memory of an insolent old man with a sharp tongue.

Merlin and the boy continued through the forest alone in silence for a long while, the chill night air seeping through their cloaks.  The shadows of the tree branches looked sinister where they blotted the starry night sky and – though Merlin was sure he was more than a match for anything in these woods – the indistinguishable animal cries sent chills up his arms.

The boy, at least, seemed surefooted; this was his domain, it was clear.  Merlin wondered if perhaps the secret hiding place for the remaining druids mightn’t be found within this very forest.  The boy walked onwards a step ahead of Merlin, stopping occasionally to examine trees that to Merlin looked like any other tree, but to Mordred appeared to be significant.

After a long examination of one such tree, Mordred turned around and announced, _«_ _You can go back.  I can find my way home from here_ _. »_

“Are you sure?”  Even though Mordred seemed at home here, the idea of abandoning a child in the woods, at night, didn’t sit well with Merlin.  “It’d make me feel better to see you back safely.”

The boy bit his lip, his eyes shifted away from Merlin’s gaze.  _«_ _I’ll be fine._ _»_

“Still…”

_«_ _I grew up in these woods,_ _»_ Mordred said, oddly insistent. _«_ _I know how to stay safe in them.  I’ll be fine._ _»_

Merlin hesitated, still.  He’d rather been hoping to talk with the druids – the _adult_ druids – who hopefully had answers to some of his questions that Gaius didn’t.  If nothing else, he thought they could explain to him the name Emrys.  Vortigern calling him Emrys could have been a mistake, as could Mordred calling him Emrys, but that two people separated by several decades with no contact between them – as evidenced by Mordred’s lack of knowledge of Merlin’s additional alias Myrddin – making the same mistake seemed beyond the realm of coincidence. 

Vortigern had meant to summon a fatherless boy warlock named Emrys who had not yet been born.  Merlin fit all that criteria except the name and, ever since Mordred carelessly used that name to thank him, Merlin wasn’t so sure about even that.  What if Vortigern hadn’t made a mistake in whom he summoned?

Whoever Emrys was, whatever that name entailed, if a young druid boy knew it, then surely the adults could tell him more.

Mordred, however, didn’t seem inclined to lead him to them.  It was difficult to tell what the boy was thinking, but he was watching Merlin unblinkingly, the whites of his pale blue eyes standing out in the darkness surrounding them.  It was almost unnerving; Merlin had to remind himself that Mordred was just a boy, to fight against the uncomfortable feeling of being scrutinised.

Merlin must have been taking too long to respond, for the boy said, _«_ _You can’t come with me any further; no outsiders are allowed to see our camp._ _»_

Maybe it was paranoid of Merlin to think so, but that sounded remarkably similar to the excuse he’d just used to brush off Arthur.  But then, the boy knew Merlin had magic, so he had no reason to lie.  Trying to push the feeling of being fobbed off away, Merlin nodded, forcing a smile, and told himself that maybe he’d have another chance to speak to adult druids.

In the meantime, he couldn’t help but ask one more question of the one druid he currently had access to.  “When you call me Emrys… what does that mean?”

It took the boy a long moment to answer.  Merlin waited impatiently, wondering what so difficult about the question – regardless of whatever the significance of the name was and whether a child even knew it, the question had been straightforward enough.  Just when Merlin was beginning to be certain the answer he’d get would be _I don’t know_ , the boy surprised him with a cryptic,

_«_ _Being Emrys means what you make it mean._ _»_

“What?” was Merlin’s eloquent response to that useless answer.

_«_ _We all have our destinies,_ _»_ the boy’s voice grew more confident as he spoke, like there was some strength hidden in the words he was unearthing as he spoke them.  _«_ _For as long as we live, they_ _will be there, waiting, inescapable.  But the path to get there is as important as the destination itself – and the path is of our choosing, not Fate’s. »_

Lovely.  Riddles.  Merlin was forcibly reminded of that blasted inscription about the red and white dragons that Vortigern had forced him to work out, and Oilell’s vague answers to his questions, and couldn’t help but wonder if it was part of the culture of the magical community to give answers that didn’t feel like answers.  If so, then for the first time he was grateful he’d been raised in a thoroughly unmagical village, if only to avoid turning into a riddle maker himself.

_«_ _So you see, Emrys,_ _»_ the boy continued, sounding strangely cheered, like there was some great kernel of hope in his words that Merlin was missing.  _«_ _A name means nothing in the beginning.  But one day, it will.  Once you give meaning to it, that is._ _»_

The whites of the boy’s eyes gleamed up at him in the pale moonlight.  As Merlin stared back, trying not to feel unnerved, he wondered if the boy had no idea what Emrys meant, either, and was trying to hide it under a ton of nice sounding waffle.  He didn’t really feel like the boy had answered his question, but – whether because Mordred truly didn’t know a more satisfactory answer or because he for some reason simply refused to be more forthcoming – Merlin could tell that that would be as much answers as Mordred was willing to give.

Nodding his head, Merlin muttered, _right_ , as though he understood that spiel that seemed more air than substance.  Apparently taking that as a dismissal, the boy turned to go.  Merlin called out one last thing, unwilling to part like that. “Goodbye, then, Mordred.  I hope you get home safely.”

The boy looked back over his shoulder, surprised.  It was difficult to tell in the dark, but Merlin thought he saw the flash of a quick smile.  _«_ _Farewell, Emrys.  Someday, we’ll meet again._ _»_

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #

It was late in the day when Arthur stormed into his chambers.  After some gruelling hours of combing the land for a boy he had no real intention of finding but had to pretend he did to play the part of the dutiful son and prince, Arthur’s scowl was a sight to behold.  Merlin, crouched on the floor, paused in his scrubbing of all the filth it’d accumulated during the days when an injured druid outweighed chores for the demands of his time.  He wished desperately he could use magic to send himself far, far away from his sleep-deprived, irate master.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed in Merlin’s direction, and the servant gulped.  Merlin was in for it and he knew it.

“Where the _hell_ were you last night?” Arthur hissed, looking like he’d much enjoy shouting instead but not wanting his voice to carry outside his chambers. “You were _supposed_ to meet me by the grate.”

“Well, you know what they say: the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that,” Merlin hedged.

Arthur’s unimpressed glare could have withered the most spritely of sprouts.  Merlin, however didn’t quail – he’d expected this much hostility.  Instead, he baited, “Well, Emrys seemed like he had it all in hand.”

Arthur’s reaction was instantaneous and, had Merlin not been walking a thin line trying to offer up lies as excuses without Arthur catching onto him, it would have been highly comical.  “Wha- you _know_ that empty-headed, bizarre, insolent…” Arthur went quiet all of a sudden, blinking at Merlin with gears turning behind his eyes, reassessing the boy in front of him.

Merlin’s stomach twisted; had invoking Emrys in his excuses been a miscalculation?  Should he have let Arthur’s anger at being abandoned the night before blind him to the events that had taken place, have let Emrys wash away to be a faint memory blurred by time?  Was Arthur right now putting two and two together, and realising that that string of adjectives were ones he used almost daily on his manservant…

“So that’s why he was so rude!”  Arthur accused.  “What did you tell him about me!”

… or was Merlin overthinking this completely?

“I should have guessed you’d gotten to him,” Arthur blithered on in irritated oblivion.  “God help us, but your insolence must be contagious.”

“Er…” Merlin said, not wanting to be held even indirectly responsible for the things he’d done as Emrys but not having prepared an excuse to fend off this strange line of reasoning.  “Well anyways,” Merlin continued on with the lie he’d practiced, ignoring this little wrinkle, “I ran into him after almost being caught near the stables by your father’s men, and he seemed to have everything under control.  Since the horses were a no go with your father’s upped patrols, we arranged it so I’d get the grate open for you all, then close it while Emrys was leading the boy back home so you wouldn’t be followed.”

“Wait, so you were there the whole time?”

“Yep.”

“Where!”

“Waiting out of sight of the city walls – I didn’t exactly fancy being spotted by the guards.”

“But why didn’t you say anything, if you were there!”

“There wasn’t exactly a lot of time to go through the whole song-and-dance of explanations.”  Arthur looked unimpressed.  It wasn’t a very good excuse, but Merlin couldn’t come up with a better one so that was the one he was going with.

“You know what I think?” Arthur narrowed his eyes.  “I think you thought it amusing leave me floundering in the dark, with a cracked old druid as a guide and my plan thrown out the window!”

“Of course not!” Merlin quickly rebutted, trying to sound scandalized.  The memory of Arthur’s face at being told to carry him made it difficult, and he suspected his twitching lips ruined the effect.  Though Arthur wasn’t quite right, he was closer than he usually got – Merlin might not have set out to pull the rug out from under Arthur, but once he saw the opportunity he certainly hadn’t let it pass by.

“Well, I’m pleased that _somebody_ at least is in a good mood – so you won’t mind then, having to wash my clothes and shine my boots so it doesn’t look like I’ve been trekking through the woods all night.” Arthur kicked off his boots at this, launching them at Merlin and flopping onto his bed.

Merlin scowled at where they’d landed, muddying his clean floor. “Now look what you’ve done,” he grumbled, moving the dirty items onto a chair. “Now I have to scrub this again.”

“If you’d done this yesterday - _like I asked_ \- then this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Oi! I was busy!”

“What could you possibly…” Arthur trailed off, his brows narrowing. “Morgana. She seemed awfully confident you’d want to be drafted into conspiracy.”

“Yeah, well, I was sort of the one who smuggled the boy into her chambers in the first place.”

Silence. Long silence. Then… “ _You?_ ”

“Yes, me,” Merlin said, unsure whether to be worried or offended. “I saw him in the courtyard, he told me the guards were after him for being a druid, and I thought – well, Morgana protests the executions, right? And I was pretty desperate, and her rooms weren’t far…”

“But… it was broad daylight! And you couldn’t have _known_ she would help – if you could even get him there unseen! _Why_ would you risk that?” A thought seemed to occur to Arthur. “Did you know Mordred?”

“No, he… reminded me of someone.” Himself, actually, four-years-old and lost in the cold stone halls of the men in red. Not that he was going to tell Arthur that, no matter how much his expression conveyed his dissatisfaction with just that as answer.

And then, an idea struck him. Sure it hadn’t worked with Gwen, but if he kept his mouth shut about the magic bit this time… “Back in Essetir, I was once captured by, erm, slave traders, and a druid woman rescued me. I guess… he reminded me of her.”

Not really, the only real similarities were that they were both druids, very quiet, and had an annoying penchant for vague riddles. It certainly wasn’t what he been thinking when he’d seen the boy in the courtyard, but it sounded plausible enough as a motive and, moreover, introduced Arthur to a secondary sympathetic druid.

A kind helpful sorceress would be a stretch too far for Arthur, but a plain druidess of ambiguous magical talent… Watching him from the corner of his eyes as he scrubbed, Merlin could see he wasn’t rejecting the idea, at least, even if he looked perturbed by the thought.

Maybe Mordred’s appearance in their lives was a blessing in disguise, Merlin thought optimistically. He didn’t think the prince would have been so open to hearing about innocent druids prior to helping rescue one himself.

Struggling to hide his smile, Merlin put away his bucket and cloth and gathered up Arthur’s laundry.  He started off in the direction of Gaius’ chambers – he had a lot of chores backed up, and wanted to get through them as quickly as possible.

“Merlin!” Gwen’s voice called after him.

He turned, and saw her half-jogging down the corridors after him, a laundry basket clutched in her hands as well. Probably also behind on her chores. She drew pace with him, and Merlin changed directions to the laundry room, resigning himself to wasting time washing Arthur’s clothes manually.

A serving boy rounded the corner just then, carrying an empty tray. Gwen glanced at him, then said, looking at Merlin very intently, “It’s too bad, about that boy escaping, isn’t it?”

“Hmm? Oh – oh, yeah. Still, at this point I doubt they’ll find him – he’s probably back with his people by now.”

“Shame.” Gwen bowed her head, her loose thick curls curtaining her face, but not before he saw her smile. “I don’t know what to tell Morgana – she feels so guilty, betraying the king like that after all he’s done for her, that she couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I’ll ask Arthur to drop in on her – he’d know how to break the news best.”

The serving boy veered off in the direction of the kitchens. Gwen glanced around twice, and lowered her voice. “About what you were saying before, about the woman who helped you…”

An air bubble seemed to be clogging Merlin’s throat. “… yeah?”

“Well, I was thinking… remember when my father was sick, and then he wasn’t, and then the guards found that poultice and I was – was…” apparently she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

“Yes.” As if he could ever forget…

“Well, it’s never really made sense to me, how it got there. Even with the whole afanc explanation for the plague, I’ve never understood why a sorcerer would conjure the beast and then heal one person in the entire city. I thought maybe the king was right and it was to set me up… but then why just me? Why not heal more people, get more people implicated? And why heal anyone at all, why not just – just make me belch fire, or something, if all they wanted to do was make trouble?”

Luckily these were rhetorical questions, because Merlin didn’t think he was up to trying to answer them. Gwen steamrolled on, “Then I got thinking, when the boy came, and you told me about that woman… what if there were two sorcerers? One killing, one healing?”

This, by the long silence afterwards, was not a rhetorical question. “… I guess that makes sense,” Merlin said, trying to look as though this was a new idea to him.

“Right?  I opened the window that night to let some fresh air in – I thought it would be good for him – and so maybe somebody was just passing by and saw my father and... it sounds crazy, I know, but -”

“No!” Gwen jumped a bit at his exclamation, nearly losing a stocking from her basket. “Sorry… no, no, it doesn’t sound crazy at all. In fact, it, er, makes a lot of sense. I think you’re right and, um, the sorcerer probably didn’t mean for you to get arrested, and felt really guilty about it… Have you talked to Morgana about this?”

“Morgana?” Gwen said, thrown. “No, I don’t want to upset her – you know how she gets about the executions – and she’s been so stressed by her nightmares and so worried about the boy… Do you think I should?”

_What if magic isn’t something you choose – what if it chooses you?_

“I think she’d want to hear it.” Since the revelation of her prophetic powers Merlin hadn’t seen much of Lady Morgana, and he couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling. “Like you said, about the executions and the boy… she’s always been alone in her, er, opinions, and she’d probably be happy to hear your, ah, theory.”

“Hmm, I suppose. She did seem very fond of the boy, and he might learn magic one day… she’d probably want to hear that it might not necessarily turn him evil.” Gwen smiled, “I think I will, thanks, Merlin.”

They’d reached the laundry room now, and he held the door open for her, balancing his basket awkwardly on his hip to do so.

“Thanks,” she muttered, steadying it with her foot so he could pass through as well. “… Do think we’ll ever see him again? The boy, I mean. I know Morgana wants to.”

Mordred, the boy whose arrival shook Merlin’s little group of friends to the core. Morgana for once finding others sharing her opinions, Arthur pondering uncomfortable matters, Gwen questioning whether her near-death experience was a botched attempt to help… His arrival brought change like a flood, uprooting everything yet leaving the ground softer and more arable in its wake.

Despite the danger he’d brought, Merlin couldn’t help but be glad it was him Mordred had called out to for help.

“Well, ever is a very long time; someday, we may.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merlin has finally taken up his secret identity!
> 
> How DID canon!Merlin, on the spur of the moment no less, manage to sneak a horse out of the royal stables and past a city on high alert? I tried to come up with something, couldn't, was a like, "screw it, no horse!"
> 
> And this is the chapter of… talking? Well, there was a lot that Merlin had to say. He'd be an utter fool to let the perfect opportunity to challenge some worldviews pass by without comment, right?


	8. 1x08 - The Fork in the Road (Part 1)

Late into the night, when his candle was burning down to a stump and his head was drooping to barely an inch above a dusty tome, Merlin realised he was looking at matters entirely from the wrong angle.

He couldn’t say what made him think it.  He’d been trying to focus on the sleep-blurred letters with a nagging suspicion that it had been a while since he’d last turned a page, but was unable to keep his mind from wandering to the black clad knight standing out in the courtyard, motionless as the dead. For the last three nights he’d stood there without food or sleep, a vigil impossible for even the most determined man alive. And yet still this knight stood there, awaiting the morrow for his match against Uther Pendragon’s son. Awaiting the match against his third competitor – his third _victim_.

Geoffrey of Marmouth had been most reluctant to relinquish one of his leather-bound treasures, but after several hours of pouring over old texts together in the archive room the old man looked ready to fall asleep on his feet.  The uncharacteristic loan of one of his precious books to an unruly youngster, then, seemed the result of a combination of exhaustion and a common desire to give the prince a fighting chance against his invulnerable opponent.  And so it was that Merlin found himself flipping through musty old tomes, trying to find ideas for how to kill someone who was already dead.

Because, of course, Arthur wouldn’t be Arthur if he didn’t feel the need to set himself up for the slaughter come morning. Hence, Merlin’s frantic midnight search for how to interfere with the inevitable outcome of a match between a man and a wraith.

The first book Geoffrey had pulled out had excited Merlin, with its mention of how swords forged in a dragon’s breath could kill anything, living or dead.  The sight of a simple map, however, had merciless cut down his frenzied if vague schemes of finding Aithusa: the inky depiction of the citadel in relation to Snowdonia had been most disheartening.

His next thought, to locate one of the legendary swords, was similarly infeasible, as he had no idea where to even begin looking.  Since then he’d been searching for a secondary way of enchanting weapons to be invincible, and coming to the slow conclusion that there wasn’t one.

In the end it wasn’t a book at all that gave him his solution; it was a growing dread for the coming dawn and hopeless reflections of the day before that made Merlin suddenly sit up, leap to his feet, and shake Gaius awake from where he’d succumbed to exhaustion atop an old book.

“What?” Gaius groaned, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.  He pushed himself off the hard table, wincing at the creak of his old bones. “Have you found something?”

“I think so,” Merlin said, distracted.  He unearthed his spellbook from a stack of loaned books, flipping through until he found the chapter titled _Glamours_ , skimming to the page he wanted.  He turned the book over, showing it to Gaius.  “Here, this one.  I’ve never done it before, so I’ll need you to help me test it out.”

Gaius took the book from Merlin, hovering his glass over the page to better read it.  “Glamours? That’s very advanced magic, but how will it help?”

“Don’t you see?  It’s so simple I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before!  You said nothing can stop this wraith until it’s achieved what it came for.  It was revived by its thirst for vengeance – once it exacts its revenge, it’ll have no motivation to linger.”

Gaius peered up at him in mild disbelief. “Are you suggesting we disguise Arthur as Uther?”

“Of course.” Merlin bookmarked the page, flipping back to an earlier chapter on defensive magic, settling on a page titled _Curse of Paralysis_ , “If the wraith thinks it’s killed Uther, it’ll let go of its worldly regrets and move on. I can freeze ‘Uther’ at the right moment, make it look like he’s a couple of feet off of where he really is, and let the wraith thinks it’s killed him.”

Gaius gave him a long, hard look, the crease in his brow speaking of some internal conflict.  After a long moment, the crease smoothed out and Gaius nodded, his decision made.  “All right.  What do you want me to do?”

Merlin gestured towards a nearby broom, not bothering with an incantation to make it sail towards Gaius.  “I need you to swing that around like a sword while I practice.”

Gaius quirked an eyebrow dubiously – he was hardly fighting fit, but it wasn’t like Merlin had anyone else.  His tired old bones creaking, Gaius stood and brandished the broom in random slashing motions.

“Ætíe mé þá þé ic wysce.”

The air around Gaius shimmered like there were rolls of heat from a scorching sun, stretching the old man’s figure.  The faint distortion lasted no longer than three half-hearted swings before fading.

Merlin sighed, “This is going to be a long night.”

The sun was bathing the city in its first rays by the time Merlin was confident he’d gotten it down.  Gaius, drenched in sweat, threw down the broom like it had mortally offended him, and stiffly trudged over to his workbench.  He began rummaging through his potion bottles while rubbing bloodshot eyes.

There was just enough time for Merlin to grab a slice of bread and cheese before hurrying off.  Biding a bread-muffled farewell to Gaius, who’d forgone breakfast and was heading up to the castle with an unfamiliar tonic, Merlin raced down to the tournament area.

He had only just finished preparing Arthur’s equipment when there was a swoosh of fabric, and a deep, familiar voice said,

“I trust everything is ready.”

Merlin nearly dropped Arthur’s sword.  Spinning around, he saw he hadn’t been mistaken: it was the king.

Just what was Uther doing here?

“Er… Arthur’s not here yet,” Merlin said.  Remembering who he was speaking to, he hastily tacked on, “Your Majesty.”

“He won’t be coming.  I will be taking his place today.”

Like a blow from behind, Merlin hadn’t seen that coming at all. 

Even as he mechanically went through the motions of suiting the king up in Arthur’s gear, he couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

It didn’t make any sense.  Arthur wouldn’t have said _oh, I see_ and quietly stepped aside to let anyone, much less his sire and liege, take on his challenge for him.  Surely at any moment he would be bursting into the tent, yelling at his father for trying to sneak one past him and threatening Merlin with the stocks for going along with it. 

But Uther exited the tent clad in Arthur’s mail, and Arthur was still nowhere to be seen.  Somehow, Uther had detained him; it was the only thing that made sense.  Perhaps he’d ordered the guards to stop Arthur from setting so much as a toe out his door?  Or perhaps…

Just what _had_ Gaius taken up to the castle in such a hurry? Surely not, surely he would said something if…

But it hardly mattered now.  Merlin didn’t need to lift a single finger to save Arthur; instead, his father would face the certain death in his stead.

Uther was going to sacrifice himself to save his son…

Merlin looked around again, but there was still no Arthur racing forwards, shouting orders and purple with rage at someone else once again accepting his challenge in his place. At his _father_ , his only family facing death in his place… Merlin froze, a horrible thought surfacing.

_This will destroy Arthur._

He’d carry the blame all his life, forever weighing heavily on his shoulders, pulling him down. It’d tear him up inside; he’d never be the same.

And yet… and yet how much freer Merlin’s life would be, without Uther in it. And not just him but the druids, and Aithusa…! Without the threat of Uther Pendragon, the invisible noose around their necks would hang that much looser. They’d breathe that much easier, if the wraith killed him… If Merlin let him die…

But what about the people of Camelot? The pinched faces passing Merlin by silent as ghosts, pale with the fear of losing the only heir to the throne... what would become of them without their king? They’d look to Arthur to make everything right, to rule at least as well as Uther did – Arthur, who’d be devastated; could anyone truly survive so much pressure while so consumed by guilt and grief?

Somehow, Merlin found himself in the stands, Gaius standing beside him.  There, waiting down in the arena, was the black clad knight, inhuman in his stillness.  In walked the king, clad in his son’s armour.  A gasp went through the crowd.

Uther’s steeled voice carried all through the stands, though the one he addressed was barely five feet away.  “You can have what you came for – the father, not the son.”

There was a clang of metal on metal – the fight had begun.  Through the deadly dance of man and wraith, Merlin’s mind flittered frantically between two warring thoughts.  Every detail was burned into his retinas – no doubt he’d dream of it that night, and many more to come. 

The man knocked away the black helmet, exposing the rotted flesh within.  A gasp went through the crowd, and cold dread pooled in Merlin.  The man didn’t flinch in his swings, but his parries were slower and his blows non-existent, like his body had realised that no matter how he fought there could be only one end to this fight.  His sword was knocked from his hand, flying a good ten feet away.  He fell to the ground, defenceless.

Merlin’s heartbeat hammered in his throat, a drumming underlying two thoughts screaming at him from opposing sides of his conscience:

_Save him.  Do nothing.  Save him.  Do nothing.  Save him.  Do nothing…_

_Ba-thump.  Ba-thump.  Ba-thump. Ba-thump.  Ba-thump. Ba-thump…_

The dead man’s sword was descending upon the living and, in that single instant, Merlin’s choice was made.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

In a servant’s entrance stood Merlin, waiting for Gaius.  Two echoes reverberated in from the council chamber, the carried voices clashing against their stony amplifiers.  They felt separated from him by more than mere walls; as if the distorted sounds existed on a separate plane from him entirely.  For one of them, Merlin’s treacherous mind whispered that it should be so, a thought he’d tried to snuff out rearing its ugly head yet again,

_Uther Pendragon should have died today._

“I thought you said the wraith wouldn’t vanish until it had had its revenge?”

“Yes, it was remarkable, Sire,” Gaius answered with deliberate blandness.

“Strange is more like it.  I was about to block its attack, when suddenly my shield became much heavier and I couldn’t lift it.  I was wide open, yet it struck me in the shoulder, not the heart.  I couldn’t move – as though a great force were pinning me to the ground.  Then, right out of the blue, the wraith vanished and I could move again.  How do you explain that?”

_How indeed_ , thought the instigator of Uther’s momentary affliction.  _A just question, my Lord._

Even if Merlin took a leave of his senses and burst into the room, on bended knee confessing the hows of Uther’s paralysis, he would have been completely unable to give a satisfactory answer to the next question, the doubtlessly last question before losing his head became more than metaphorical: _why?_

Just what had possessed him to save the life of Uther Pendragon?

The spells had been the easy part.  True, they were some of the most hideously complex spells in his book, but to save Arthur’s life they’d been child’s play to learn.  But then into the tent where Merlin was readying _Arthur’s_ sword, _Arthur’s_ shield, _Arthur’s_ armour walked Uther.

And Merlin had been forced to make a choice. Now, he had to live with the consequences.

_Uther Pendragon should have died today,_ whispered scathing logic, livid at having been ignored when it mattered.  _You played God, when you have no idea what you’re doing and no plan.  What are you going to do the next time the king condemns an innocent?  Don’t you remember Mordred?  Or the very first time you laid eyes on Uther?  Gwen almost burning, on_ his _orders?  The fate of Mordred’s master?  Your own father, for God’s sake – have you forgotten even that?_

There was a loud slamming of thick oaken doors and the sound of heavy footsteps which spoke their owner’s displeasure.

Glass chinked against glass; Gaius was hurrying to pack up his medicine bag, suddenly eager to be off.  “Well, it’s not fatal, but it will take a long time to heal.  I’ll redress it tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Gaius.”

Gaius exited rather quickly, grabbing Merlin by the arm and ushering him from the council chamber.  Even half way down the servant’s passage, Arthur’s outrage echoed out, “You had Gaius _drug_ me!  _I_ was meant to fight him!”

Those words resounded in Merlin’s ears; he couldn’t have dislodged them had he tried.  As it was, he made no attempt to, letting them buzz through his head all down the cold stone corridors.

Back in Gaius’ quarters, away from unwanted ears, the bitten-down words burst forth.  “Why didn’t you tell me Uther was planning to take Arthur’s place?”

Gaius was restocking his bag, answering without even looking up.  “The king had me swear not to tell anyone of his plan – besides, it didn’t matter.  The problem remained, whether it was Uther or Arthur the wraith faced, that it could not be killed.”

“Didn’t matter?” Merlin echoed in disbelief. “What was the point in staying up all night, if I didn’t need to disguise Arthur as Uther!”

If he’d known it was Uther needing to be saved, would he have still researched wraiths?  Perhaps, but Merlin doubted the ingenuity of desperation would’ve struck him had he known whose life was really hanging in the balance.  By sheer lack of inspiration, he could have been spared making the choice of whether to save or doom Uther. _If_ Gaius had told him.

Like an ill-timed spark, that idea blew in a sudden fury.

_If only Gaius had just told him…_

“Knowledge is a reward of its own, Merlin.  With a handful of hours and a deadline you’ve virtually mastered the art of illusions – that’s sure to be useful in the future.”  Gaius had finished restocking his bag now and looked up, face dour with exhaustion.  “Besides, you still needed to alter everyone’s perception of exactly where Uther was.”

“Not really.” Merlin bit out, bitterness clawing up from deep within. “The wraith would’ve disappeared either way.”

“Merlin!”

But Gaius’ shock only made the bitterness boil; why was Gaius looking at him like he’d never seen him before? Why was he so sure that saving Uther was the right thing? Uther, of all people; after all the heartache Uther had caused, how could Gaius look at Merlin like he was a monster for even suggesting the possibility of just letting Uther die!

“I didn’t _have_ to save him, you know! This wraith – Tristan de somewhere-or-other, was it? You said he was consumed by a grudge against Uther? And he died _twenty years_ ago, yes? Well, if you ask me, the people from twenty years ago had damn good reason for taking grudges to their graves!”

“I know what you’re thinking, but Tristan’s death occurred before the Great Purge.”

“And Uther was a perfectly lovely person back then who just woke up one morning with a sudden urge to massacre people?”

“I’m not saying that.” Gaius said sharply, a haunted look in his eyes. “But bringing what happened twenty years ago up now does no one any good; not even your magic can raise the Purge victims from their graves. What we should be striving towards is preventing others from joining them there, and part of that is keeping the kingdom safe. Uther is a good king, and –”

“You think Uther’s a good king?” Merlin interrupted, unable to believe his ears. An effective king, yes, a man necessary for the safety of the kingdom, possibly, but _good_?

“Yes.”  Gaius said it so simply, so confidently, that Merlin could only stare. After a moment Gaius began slowly, as if thinking how to explain a view so basic he hadn’t had to justify it in years, if ever. “I know it’s probably hard for you in particular to see…”

Hard? No. Impossible? Definitely.

“… but a good man and a good king are not necessarily the same thing. It’s a king’s job to protect the kingdom, to keep his people safe from threats and insure their prosperity, and Uther is very good at this. Most of his methods are right. Sometimes he may go too far…”

“You mean like sentencing Gwen to the pyre because her father was healed by magic, or setting a citywide manhunt for a child whose only crime was being a druid? Or do you mean just in general how he’ll execute anyone who so much as passes a sorcerer in the street?”

Gaius gave him a look and ploughed on, ignoring the interjection. “But despite Uther’s failings, he has brought peace and prosperity to this kingdom.”

“Really?” The bitterness in his voice would now surely curdle milk. “I can’t even magic that jug over here without glancing over my shoulders, half-expecting to be dragged off and burnt alive – you call that peace?”

“I said peace, not utopia. You weren’t here during Vortigern’s reign; count yourself lucky to have escaped that madness. You can live here without fear of being invaded, dragged off by slavers, attacked in a street full of witnesses, or having your life ended on nothing but a royal whim. Anyone who abides by Uther’s laws – including the unjust ones – can live under their protection, confident the king will uphold them. That kind of peace is rare in the world we live in – rarer than you seem to think.”

Memories of tax collection day in Ealdor reared their unwanted, ugly head. He pushed them down; what did the general brutality of Cenred’s men have to do Uther’s targeted ruthlessness? As though to drown out the memory of a lecherous voice demanding his mother pay, _one way or another_ , twice what he’d demanded of their neighbours, Merlin said a bit too forcefully, “So Uther doesn’t terrorize the people! Even Arthur could do that!”

“Because that’s what Uther’s raised him to do since birth.”

“Then why not let Arthur be king?” Why had that seemed like such a bad thing earlier? Whenever Uther was ruthlessly practical, Arthur was the one who’d follow through on the just thing, acting as Uther saw himself rather than how he actually was.

“Because Arthur’s not ready. He only came of age three days ago – the responsibility would be too great. Brave though he may be, he lacks experience, and the judgement to make the kinds of choices a king must.”

Merlin opened his mouth to argue – if _Uther_ could make these choices, then surely Arthur could – and then closed it, swallowing back the words. There was no point; Gaius was not swaying him, and he wasn’t swaying Gaius. There was nothing more he could say to Gaius, no more advice for Gaius to give him. Not on this, when his strange friendship with the king biased him so.

Merlin’s fears he’d chosen wrongly were not ones he could voice - not to a friend of Uther’s.  And if he couldn’t voice them to Gaius, then there was no one he could voice them to.

Without a further word, Merlin turned and headed to his room, throwing himself on his bed, intent on getting the sleep he’d been denied the night before.

All those hours of slowly edging Gaius’ likeness to be Uthur’s, of working out how to best momentarily paralyse the living combatant without breaking his concentration on the glamour… in the end, it’d all been wholly irrelevant to helping Arthur.

As Gaius had known the whole time.

Merlin dug his fingers into his pillow, his eyes squished shut already, and tried to will the oblivion of sleep upon himself.  It would be a mercy beyond compare to be able to just not think, if only to silence the war taking place within his conscience for a few hours.

It was like the time with Edwin, yet not.  The decision to save Uther had been all his own this time.  There had been no Gaius hovering over his shoulders, guilting him onwards when he faltered, for Gaius now took it for granted that Merlin would rise to Uther’s defence as easily as Arthur’s.

And just where had he gotten that idea from?  In one way or another, everything wrong with Merlin’s life could be traced back to Uther.  And Merlin was far from the only person Uther made suffer day-by-day.

Except it wasn’t that simple anymore.

There was Arthur to consider, and the people of Camelot. What if Gaius was right, and saving Uther had averted national disaster? What if Gaius was wrong, and Merlin had turned his back on freedom for nothing?

Did Merlin actually have any right to decide the worth of Uther’s life, and whether he should be allowed to continue it or not?

And hadn’t he already done so, whether he had a right to or not?

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The next day there was still some lingering excitement around the king’s mysterious victory, but as the days went on Camelot almost seemed to forget the undead knight who’d killed two knights and nearly killed the king.  Merlin kept expecting someone to cry witchcraft over the king’s miraculous survival – Uther would have, had it been anybody else whom an entire city saw get stabbed in the heart yet came out with a non-fatal wound to the shoulder – but to his amazement the entire city seemed content to believe they’d mistaken where the king had been stabbed.

Unable to fathom how not a single person was suspicious, Merlin risked venturing a ‘theory’ to Gwen.

She just laughed. “Merlin, be serious! What would a sorcerer be doing, helping _Uther_?”

And there it was, again: that question he couldn’t answer.  She walked away with a smile at his fumbling attempts to come up with one, unaware of the blow her words had wrought.

What _was_ he doing?

The thought was a disease, always there but manageable.  But then there would be sudden pangs - brought on by the littlest of things - which dug in and twisted, chafing a little more each time.

The grey February passed into a misty March, and from there to a drizzling April. The days were lengthening, and there was talk of spring in the air, but time seemed to have fallen into some strange contradictory trap where it sped forward while Merlin lagged behind. He felt divorced from its passage, trapped in a world parallel to the one he walked through, one where nights spent staring at the ceiling second-guessing and days of questioning _whys_ blended together without answers.

Some days, he’d lie in bed in the mornings and wonder if there was even any point to forcing himself to get up. It felt like colour was slowly leaching away, dulling the world around him.

He couldn’t stand feeling like this.  He was itching for a distraction.

If Mary Collins’ evil twin waltzed through the city gates, he’d hug her.  Then he’d beg her to make her evil plans a public spectacle that he could storm in to face in full-out glory as Emrys the powerful old druid, smiting the evildoer and saving the populace in a wonderful display of pure magic, basking in the astonished faces of the crowd and the furtive, but irrepressible whispers of _it was a sorcerer who saved us_ … or even better _maybe not all magic is bad_ …

But Mary Collins’ evil twin did not come.

April became May, a bright sunny May full of flowers in vases all through the castle and the woods fairly bursting with new growth. People in the citadel seemed buzzing with new life as well, Arthur more so than most. Yet Merlin could scarcely muster the energy to grouse about the number of hunting trips he was dragged on.

Summer came, and a year passed since the day Merlin had arrived in Camelot.  With that anniversary brought the disheartening realisation of how little he’d accomplished in all that time. 

True, he had learned a good deal about magic, his original reason for agreeing to his mother’s plans, and his three good friends – Arthur, Morgana, and Gwen – had had their views on magic challenged when he’d dragged Mordred into their lives.  But nothing substantial had changed; the laws against magic were still in place, and the general population feared it as much as ever.  In one year, he’d made depressingly little progress.

Opportunities like the one Mordred had presented, it turned out, were few and far between. 

Since Uther, the only way he’d saved anyone was to drop branches onto common bandits’ heads, out in the woods where only twenty or so people were usually present. And he did so not as Emrys the Druid, but as just Merlin the Idiot, crouched behind a tree while everyone else was fighting.  And all he ever got for it was mockery.  The moral quandaries around indiscriminate executions of sorcerers remained as far from anyone’s thoughts as ever.

Late at night, after all his daily chores were complete, Merlin tried to think of a way to be more proactive in his goals.  Mordred had been a good start; Morgana, Gwen, and Arthur had all seen the sense in saving one innocent boy hailing from a magic-practicing community (though only Morgana knew the boy himself had magic).  But leaving it there did little good long term.

Yet he just couldn’t think of a way to challenge people’s worldviews that neither cast suspicion upon himself nor put them in substantial danger.

The days went by, following the pattern of castle life with little deviation.  He did grunge work as a servant, helped Gaius in his spare time, snuck in a few hours of studying a day, chatted with Gwen, bickered with Arthur, snitched food behind Cook’s back, and continued teaching Tyr how to read in exchange for stable duty.  The only change was in the seasons; the weather warmed, fresh foods replaced preserves on the dinner table, and the seasonal merchants returned with their summer goods.

The summer air was bustling in the city, but as he ghosted through his day-to-day city life, more and more Merlin found his heart wandering back to a village leagues away, where summer meant something entirely different than busy markets and increased patrols for bandits.

Same as when he’d left, the fields of Ealdor would be golden with wheat.  Soon it would be time for the village to come together to bring the harvest in, unrestrained laughter and exasperated yells of _get back to work_ mingling in the crisp early autumn air.  How strange that already a year had passed; one harvest had gone by without him, as had a sowing, and now another was on its way.  In the city where the seasons weren’t the center of existence, it was startling how what he’d always considered the hallmarks of a year passed by without his notice.

And always, without fail, whenever his mind drifted too far from Camelot he’d remember why he was now fetching sausages and eggs and thick, buttered slabs of toast for a prince who gulped them down without tasting them instead of rising at dawn to eat tasteless pottage and spending his whole day fighting the never-ending battle against weeds so that his village wouldn’t starve.  It was impossible to think of his mother sending him off without thinking of Cenred’s Court Sorcerer who’d caused his exile, and of his apprentice who’d set him free in exchange for a promise.

What had happened to her after he’d left?

What would she say if she could see him now, trudging around after Uther’s son day after day after day, with no plan and just a fervent hope that another incident would fall from the sky and hand him an opportunity to challenge beliefs on a silver platter?

What would she say if she knew he’d chosen to save Uther Pendragon, the instigator of the Purge that had killed her family?

And Mordred, likewise bereaved by the king - what would he say?

And – a thought too unbearable for Merlin to dare ponder yet would slip through all the same before he could quash it – if his father could see him now…

The more these thoughts occupied him, the further he drifted.  He felt like a distracted puppet-master, yanking the marionette to and fro according to a basic script he’d once memorized. But, unable to muster any energy or attention for the role, he was slowly falling out of synch with the greater play.

Gaius was the first to notice.  He gave Merlin long, searching looks, and asked if there was something on his mind.  Merlin would smile and deny it, Gaius would raise his eyebrow but pretend to believe him, and then repeat the question later.  But Merlin had decided months before; Gaius could not help him this time.  Gaius’ unobtrusive persistence fell on intentionally deaf ears, though Merlin’s conscious twinged whenever something slumped in the old man’s shoulders and dimmed in his eyes.

Gwen was the next to notice, and several more casual acquaintances followed.  Most were fairly easy to hold off with a combined excuse of ‘summer lethargy’ and ‘homesickness’, but Gwen wasn’t sold.  In mid-August she invited him to the pub, and there Merlin spent an incredibly awkward evening trying to convince Gwen that there was no need to drown his broken heart in liquor as he didn’t have a broken heart in the first place, and no he wasn’t just saying that out of embarrassment or because it hurt too much to talk about it, and it didn’t matter that there were plenty of fish in the sea because he hadn’t been dumped by anyone, and he didn’t know where she got the idea that he was in an unrequited love from anyways.

“I know the symptoms,” Gwen said knowingly, pushing another pint at him in a doomed attempt to loosen his tongue.  “You can’t fool someone who just went through the same thing.”

Which made Merlin curious about who Gwen’s crush had been and why he hadn’t noticed she’d had one.  She didn’t elaborate though, just went on with her earnest if misguided brand of encouragement.  “Trust me; a heart-to-heart is just what you need.  It was only after venting to Morgana that I was able to stop moping around like a love-sick puppy and get on with my life.”

In the end, to get her off his back, Merlin “spilled” a rather vague sob-story of one-sided love towards a girl he “didn’t want to name”.  Since then Gwen had essentially backed off.  She’d ask him how he was “holding up” in the hall, smile and assure him he’d get better with time, but that was about it.

At first, Merlin took it for granted that Arthur hadn’t cottoned on to Merlin’s growing distraction.  Certainly Arthur didn’t prod him like Gaius and Gwen.  His reaction to Merlin behaving like a pigeon-brained simpleton with the memory capacity of a flea was to gleefully call him a pigeon-brained simpleton with the memory capacity of a flea, and then either throw something at him or smack him across the back of his head. 

But then there were strange side glances that Merlin would catch Arthur giving him, and an increase in fervency in name calling; almost as though Arthur thought if he were insulting enough, he could irritate Merlin back to earth and ground him there.

And, despite Arthur’s great reluctance to discuss anything remotely related to _feelings_ , even he had a tipping point.  When things with Arthur came to a head, Merlin was setting out Arthur’s breakfast while stewing over whether Aithusa was doomed to stay dormant in Snowdonia for all eternity. Suddenly, something soft crashed into the back of his head, startling him into knocking over the water pitcher.

“Tell me, _Mer_ lin, do you know what that is?”

Turning away from the puddle spreading across the table and threatening to spread to the floor, Merlin leaned down to see whatever it was that Arthur had thrown at him this time.  Dimly recalling the fabric laying at his feet as the one he’d grabbed from the top of the Arthur’s wardrobe and tossed up on his changing screen not ten minutes ago, Merlin was about to reply _your shirt_ when he actually took a good look at it.

“One of Morgana’s dresses.”

How the heck had he managed to mix Morgana’s clothing into Arthur’s?

“How in _God’s name_ did you mistake a _dress_ for my shirt?”  Arthur strode forwards, “Do you still have some semblance of a brain left in here –” he rapped on Merlin’s skull as though checking to see if it was hollow, “– or did you forget it wherever you forgot my _actual_ shirt?”

Merlin batted away Arthur’s hand, moving to the wardrobe and hoping fervently that the next item of clothing he pulled out would be one of Arthur’s shirts.  Luck was with him; it was.

“Here,” Merlin said, handing the shirt over to Arthur.  He turned aside, expecting Arthur to go change, and glanced around the room, trying to remember what he’d been doing.

For some reason, Arthur didn’t move.  He just stood there, half-dressed, boring holes into the back of Merlin’s head.  Merlin stubbornly ignored him, trying to remember if he’d been scrubbing the floor or filling the bath before Arthur interrupted him – it’d been something to do with water, hadn’t it?  Wandering around the room looking for a bucket full of water with his mind already beginning to drift back to his hopeless musings on Aithusa’s chances of ever flying free, Merlin stepped in a puddle and spared it half a glance, briefly wondering when it got there, before continuing on his search.

What was it he was looking for again?

Arthur was giving Merlin one of those strange looks again, this time not even bothering to try and hide it.  “Do you need a few days off?”

That certainly grabbed Merlin’s attention.

“What?” he said, because he must have misheard or else hallucinated that.  Arthur’s policy was that if _he_ didn’t get to just stop being a prince for a few days (never mind that was pretty much exactly what he did on his hunting trips) then _Merlin_ didn’t need days off, either.  If he actually had offered Merlin not only a day off, but _multiple_ days off, then Merlin would have no choice but to knock him out and tie him up until he figured out how to reverse the mind-altering enchantment Arthur was clearly under.

If this was another Sophia Incident, then there were going to be _words_.

Arthur seemed to be fighting raising his hands to massage his temples, like he knew he had a headache incoming and was just waiting for it to set in. “Look, I won’t pretend that I know the specifics of what exactly you do with my clothes between when you take them out of my chambers and when you bring them back, washed and folded.  So I’ll concede maybe there’s _some_ explanation for how you mixed up my and Morgana’s laundry that’s perfectly reasonable.  But I _do_ know that even _you_ aren’t normally out of it enough to wash what is clearly a woman’s garment, dry what is clearly a woman’s garment, iron what is clearly a woman’s garment, fold what is clearly a woman’s garment, put away what is clearly a woman’s garment, set out what is clearly a woman’s garment, and – during _all_ these steps – never once notice that what you are dealing with is, in fact, a woman’s garment.”

Well, when he put it like that, then of course it sounded bad.

“Ahahaha…” Merlin laughed, wondering what excuse could explain this ridiculous amount of oversight.  “I think the heat’s getting to me… You know how these… types of things… just… happen?”

Arthur looked supremely unimpressed.  “Oh sod it all...” he muttered to himself, before raising his voice. “Just tell me what’s wrong already, Merlin!”

“I just did,” Merlin rebutted instantly.

“It’s almost October now; it’s not that hot anymore!”

“I’m very sensitive to heat.”

“You weren’t last year.”

“It’s a recent thing.  Gaius says people sometimes develop extreme sensitivities to the elements – it’s called… er… Elementus Sensitus Syndrome.”

“There is no way that’s an actual thing.”

“Are you saying I just made it up?” Merlin asked in his best wounded voice, trying to channel the wide-eyed innocence of a kicked puppy.

Arthur was apparently immune to kicked puppies.  “Are _you_ saying that if I were to go to Gaius, right now, and ask him what Elementus Sensitus Syndrome is he’d have any idea what I was talking about?”

There was no good reply for that.

And after a moment, Arthur sighed.  “Is it really that difficult to tell me?”

Merlin hesitated; unlike Gaius or Gwen, Arthur wouldn’t risk opening the can of worms on _feelings_ unless he felt backed up into a corner with no other recourse. On the other hand, there was no way he could discuss _any_ of what was troubling him with Arthur unless he wanted to be so vague they weren’t even speaking on the same subject. 

Not having the energy to construct a clever conversation with a double-meaning, Merlin opted for a puzzled look.  “There’s nothing really to tell.  I just wasn’t paying attention and made a mistake.  Otherwise, I’m completely fine.”

Arthur didn’t say anything for a long moment, as if waiting for Merlin to retract his words.  Merlin stood his ground, ignoring the lacy silk gown lying still crumpled on the ground in his peripheral vision.  Arthur could surely still see it too, that damn dress that had sparked this whole mess.

At length, Arthur seemed to realise Merlin was just as, if not more so, stubborn as him.  The thought _time for plan B_ was written all over Arthur’s face.  “All right, then.  Since you’re clearly _completely_ _fine_ ,” Arthur gave a none-too-subtle glance at the crumpled up mess of bodice and flaring skirt, “it seems a shame to keep you cooped up in here when you could be frolicking outside, enjoying being so _completely fine_.  You know what? You can have the day off.”

“What?” Merlin said, blindsided.

“You heard me, you’ve got the day off, starting right now.  You can leave.  Go on, shoo.”

 “But… what about the things I need to do for tomor-”

“I don’t know if you need to come in tomorrow.” Arthur cut him off.  “I guess it’ll all depend on how _completely fine_ you are.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Good luck trying to find a law that forbids the crown prince from giving his personal servant time off.” Arthur raised his brows, daring Merlin to waste his time looking for some long forgotten decree proclaiming _thou shalt not give thy manservant time off_. “Now go… pick herbs, or whatever it is you do in your spare time.”

… Was Arthur seriously not going to let Merlin return to work until he admitted to being something other than _fine_?

Arthur stared smugly back at him, a cockeyed grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

… Yes, Arthur fully intended to just keep giving Merlin the day off until he spilled his guts.  Well, two could play at that game.

Merlin forced his lips into a wide, toothy grin.  “Great!  I’ve always wanted a day off!  Since, as you so nicely already said, my day off starts right now, I guess you’ll have to be the one to go and explain to Lady Morgana that you need her to find you a servant for an undisclosed amount of time who can start immediately.”

Merlin turned on his heel and marched to the door, calling over his shoulder, “But first things first – good luck getting dressed!”

Merlin’s tide of smugness and irritation carried him to Gaius’ quarters, where he vented the morning’s events to the bemused physician, who seemed oddly pleased to have Merlin there, pacing and fuming, not even admonishing Merlin for some of the less-than-saintly verbal portraits of Arthur he was giving.

“ – more brains to be found in senile snails’ rotting entrails half-picked by blind buzzards,” Merlin finally finished, having exhausted every other demeaning comparison he could possibly think of.

Gaius waited a few minutes for Merlin to catch his breath before remarking, all expression wiped from his face save for a faint twitching of the lips. “So am I to take it that you _don’t_ want a day off?”

“Of course I want a day off! I just don’t want _him_ to be the one to – to force one on me! Just… argh! I’ll get him back for this!”

“Yes, well, while you’re considering how to do that,” Gaius said, his eyebrow now also doing a funny spasm, as though it dearly wished to climb to incredulous heights, “you can put some of this new-found energy to use and do some chores while I’m out making calls.”

Bucket swinging in hand, Merlin fantasized all the way down to the well how he could both get out of having a heart-to-heart with Arthur and get back at him. The easiest way would be to give him the sob-story he’d given Gwen, fleshing out the details to gag-worthy levels of mushiness. If he played his cards right, Arthur would be begging him to change the topic to something else, anything else, just anything other than Merlin’s sappier-than-a-weepy-pine one-sided love-story…

Smirking a little, Merlin straightened up from the well, setting the now-filled bucket front of him. Then his eyes widened at a wholly unexpected face in the crowd. He forgot the bucket as he rushed forwards with an incredulous, delighted cry of,

“Mother?”

At this, Hunith turned to him, and he stiffened. There was dark, ugly bruising across her face, splaying outwards from her eye.

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Gwen was humming as she walked back from the market, one arm swinging by her side, the other clutching a bundle of flowers meant to brighten her lady’s chambers. Through the crowd she spotted Merlin. He was with someone she didn’t recognise, an older woman in peasant clothing. Gwen raised her hand, about to call out to him, but faltered when the woman drew Merlin into a long embrace.

Gwen lowered her arm in silence and wove through the crowd to be on Merlin’s blind side, reluctant to interrupt an obviously private moment. Yet she couldn’t help but prick her ears as she neared them.

“ – did this to you?” Merlin was saying. The fierceness in his voice made Gwen look over.

Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling her gasp at the evidence of brutality splayed across the middle-aged woman’s face. The woman glanced over and Gwen quickly looked away, walking a bit faster.

“Mother?” Merlin started ushering the woman up the street, a hand placed protectively on her shoulder. “What happened?”

“Just after harvest, bandits rode into the village. They demanded we hand everything over – we tried to hide enough to – ” A group of gossiping town girls passed by, drowning out the woman until they passed. “ – didn’t believe it was everything. I tried to stop them, but…” She gestured to her face. Merlin’s grip on her shoulder tightened.

They turned a corner, to the stairwell leading to Gaius’ chambers. Gwen carried on her way, troubled. Gwen was a city girl at heart, but she’d spent enough of her childhood serving alongside her mother at Lady Clarys’ home fief to have seen villages raided by bandits. A half-forgotten memory rose up; she was accompanying her mother and Lady, feeling important scurrying around helping hand out grain to mothers and fathers half-dead from hunger, shocked at the sight of grown men burst into tears to receive a bag, and at the dearth of children her age or younger in the cue. That Merlin’s hometown should face such things… Merlin, who’d once tried to take her place on the pyre, who’d stood up to the prince and thrice saved his life, whose sympathy for that poor druid child had been nothing short of astounding... Merlin was the sweetest, most selfless boy she knew; he, of all people, didn’t deserve this.

The sound of raised voices coming from within Morgana’s chambers brought Gwen’s focus back to her surroundings. Her knock went unanswered, so she let herself in, steeling herself against the angry tirade that erupted out when she opened the heavy oaken door.

“ – seem to think we employ servants to do nothing but loaf around waiting for the day _you_ decide to call for them on a whim – ”

“I’m _telling_ you, I only need someone for the day… probably…”

“Other people manage to get by without a servant for a _day_ , Arthur Pendragon, and I see no reason why you -” The door gave a loud creak despite Gwen’s best efforts to slip in silently. Morgana’s eyes snapped over, and her face brightened. “Gwen!”

Embarrassed at suddenly being the focus of the two worked up nobles, Gwen held out the bouquet to her mistress, dipping in a half-curtsy to acknowledge the prince’s presence. Morgana strode away from Arthur (who looked oddly dishevelled – was his shirt on backwards?), taking the flowers with a smile. “How sweet, you shouldn’t have!”

“Morgana,” Arthur began, clearly annoyed at being dismissed in favour of flowers.

“These’ll look very nice by the window, in that old vase Uther gave me,” Morgana said a trifle louder than necessary, walking there with her back to Arthur.

“Morgana – ” Arthur tried again, annoyance edging into anger.

“There!” Morgana exclaimed, pointedly deaf. “Don’t you think they’re lovely here, Gwen?”

“Hm? Oh, yes… very nice, my lady.”

She must not have seemed sufficiently enthused, however, for Morgana tilted her head, her smile vanished. “Is something wrong?”

“Not with me… it’s just, on my way back from the market…” By the end of her story, Arthur looked disturbed and Morgana horrified.

“That’s awful! Poor Merlin, there must be something we can do.”

“Well,” said Arthur slowly. “There is one thing…”

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

As Hunith gave her son her ill tidings, he listened without interruption. His face tightened at her descriptions of the failed attempts to trick Kanen and appeal to King Cenred. It wasn’t until they were in Gaius’ quarters and she was seated with a hot drink in her hands that Merlin spoke.

“So then you came get my help?”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but…” Their king wouldn’t save them and they couldn’t defeat Kanen on their own; Merlin’s gifts were Ealdor’s last hope.

“I will, of course I will!”

“It’ll be dangerous. Kanen has forty men at his command and if the villagers were to see you using magic...”

But the rest of her warning died on her lips. Merlin was making a curious, almost sardonic face, his lips outright twitching at the word _dangerous_. “I’ll just disguise myself – it’ll be fine, Mother. Trust me.”

The easy confidence in his words gave her pause. He seemed older than last she’d seen him. Before he’d been just a boy, awkward and uncertain, but now he had the air of a man who’d tested his abilities and had complete confidence in them. He’d grown up in his year away and now…

Now he reminded her of Balinor. Hunith smiled. “Alright. Shall we head out early tomorrow, then?”

“Fine with me.” Merlin stood, reaching into a cupboard and emerging with a large pot. “I should get lunch going. I’ll double the stew, that way we can just reheat some in the morning before heading out.”

Hunith pushed back her chair, ready to help, but Merlin said hurriedly, “No, you don’t have to – just rest, Mother. You must be exhausted.”

Her tired feet were grateful for the reprieve, but she couldn’t shake the decidedly odd feeling of sitting idle while her child was working. Merlin chatted as he piled vegetables onto a cutting board, introducing strange misshapen roots called _potatoes_ to her and launching into a tale of some people in the lower town, a plague, a friend named Gwen, and learning to think before he acted.

She smiled with lonely pride as she listened. He’d grown up so much without her…

There was a knock at the door of Gaius’ chambers. Merlin went to answer, calling over his shoulder for her to keep an eye on the broth. Hunith rose and took up the ladle, but got no further before Merlin called,

“Mother? Someone here to see you.”

Confused, Hunith walked over, wondering who in Camelot could possibly want anything with her.

A red cloaked guard stood on the other side of the doorway. Her heart jumped to her throat. Thankfully, the guard didn’t leave her long in suspense, promptly beginning with stately disinterest, “Prince Arthur sends word that your audience will be tomorrow morning, at the eleventh bell.”

She glanced at Merlin. He looked surprised, but not utterly bewildered as Hunith was. Perhaps she’d misheard. “I’m sorry, did you say my… audience?”

“Yes, with the king - he’s agreed to hear your case. I understand you wish to present a plea requesting help with bandits.”

“I… well, um...” She stalled, quickly thinking it over. If she could convince Uther to send men, it would save the village from starvation without having to risk Merlin being discovered. “Yes, right. Well, then, if you’d be so kind as to convey my thanks to the prince, and, um, that tomorrow I’ll be… sorry, where is this audience taking place?”

“In the throne room.”

Making a mental note to have Merlin show her where that was, Hunith continued, “If you could please let the prince know I’ll be there tomorrow, at eleven, I’d be very grateful.”

The guard nodded and left. Hunith shut the door, turning to Merlin. “... did you ask the prince to get me an audience?”

“And I could have done that, when?” Merlin wandered back over to the kitchen, before returning to the cutting board.

Hunith followed, taking up the ladle and giving the stew a good stir before returning to the chair at a very pointed look from her son. “Then how did he know about the bandits?”

“Well, we were discussing it in the outer courtyard, so probably half the servants know by now…” The knife was turning the potatoes into consistently sized cubes with practiced ease. “Anyways, surely it doesn’t matter so much _who_ got you the audience, as the fact that you have less than twenty-four hours to prepare for it.”

Her stomach flipped. “Oh God, I should have packed my good dress!” She glanced down at her travel-stained clothing. She’d been planning to wash it after arriving at Gaius’ and hadn’t brought anything else. “Will the king be upset if I show up like this? What do people normally wear for these kinds of things?”

“Everyday clothes, mostly. You’ll be fine – wash and you’ll be better presented than about half of who shows up for appeals.”

“But still…” She picked at a mud stain, hoping it would come out before eleven the next day.

When Gaius returned he stopped in surprise – possibly at her presence, or possibly at the sight of her hunched over his sink in nothing but her shift, frantically scrubbing a soppy linen lump. He quirked an eyebrow, and – feeling reduced to the nine-year-old with scrapped knees and twigs in her hair she’d been when first they met – Hunith hastened to explain everything from Kanen’s arrival in Ealdor to the messenger at Gaius’ door. By the time she finished, she was hanging her dress to dry and trying to dig the dirt from her fingernails.

All in all, when the bell rang eleven times the following morning Hunith was so stiff she feared she’d blow over in wind. Standing there in the throne room, staring up at the shallow sympathy of a foreign king to a peasant woman’s plight, she thought numbly to herself, _So, this is Uther Pendragon._

He looked so normal. With grey in his receding hair and a depressingly familiar glint of regretful but complacent pity in his eyes, there was no sign for her to recognize him by had they met in different circumstances. His many ringed hands were cleaner than any she’d ever seen, as though they did not bear the blood of hundreds.

The audience went as she’d expected rather than hoped, and she walked out the massive double doors with nothing but the disquiet of a human face to fit to a name. Merlin followed her out, promising to meet her at Gaius’ after saying goodbye to his friends. She returned there and gathered her bags – already packed – and, with nothing else to do, went up to Merlin’s room to bring down his.

She was perplexed by how many there were. Moreover, his room was stripped bare, as if he’d packed everything he owned.

“You’ve noticed, then.” Hunith gave a small jump. Gaius must have come up the stairs behind her.

“I don’t understand – surely he means to come back?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Gaius said wearily, a troubled frown on his face. “Lately he’s been strangely listless, as though preoccupied by something. Well, truthfully, he’s been getting that way for a while now… almost like infection in a wound left to fester, it came on slowly and just keeps getting worse.” Gaius paused, and suggested in an unconvinced manner, “Perhaps he’s simply burnt out by the city and needs to go home for a while.”

Hunith said nothing, wondering if Merlin would truly call Ealdor _home_. It was familiar, certainly, and she and Will lived there, and it did have many memories attached to it… But not all of those memories were good, and aside from his mother and best friend, the best Merlin could hope for from the people there was ambivalence. More than all that, though, was her gut conviction – her perhaps biased mother’s instinct – insisting that Merlin was meant for more than farming.

A door opened downstairs, drawing her from these thoughts. “Mother, we’ve got a problem.”

Hurried footsteps padded up the steps and Merlin appeared in the doorway panting, leaning against the frame. “Gwen and Morgana are coming – I tried to talk them out of it, but they won’t budge, they just keep insisting they’re coming along.”

Hunith could suddenly feel every line on her face. “That’ll make disguising you a problem.”

Merlin nodded. “Maybe… maybe the king’ll stop them, or something’ll come up to detain them here, or happen to make them turn back en route – I think I’ll bring the potion, just in case.”

Merlin bent down by his bed, prying a floorboard loose with a flash of his eyes and a whispered word. He retrieved yet another pack from within, maneuvering it carefully out the narrow gap. Staring at the nondescript bag intently, he ventured, clearly not at all keen on his own idea, “… Or I could _cause_ an incident to make them turn back.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Hunith hurried to reassure him. “If you can’t disguise yourself, we’ll work out what to do then.”

Merlin looked up at her, puzzled. “But aren’t you worried about what’ll happen if I’m seen in Ealdor? I know Oilell said Ingild wouldn’t be a problem anymore, but before sending me off you seemed… Mother? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Merlin stood, peering at her doubtlessly white face in concern. Hunith felt sick to her stomach; he didn’t know. The news must not have traveled this far. “No, Merlin, I was wrong, the Court Sorcerer isn’t a problem now, for anyone.” Merlin still looked confused and Hunith hesitated, but there was no good way to say it. “He’s dead.”

Confusion was transforming to horrified enlightenment now – Merlin had always been a bright boy. “And Oillel?”

“King Cenred named her the killer. She’d run off long before they found him, you see.”

“But she got away?” Desperation strangled Merlin’s voice; this was something he needed to believe. “She ran off, you said, so -”

Hunith shook her head, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Merlin,” she tried to be gentle, for whatever measure of comfort that might bring, “but I’m afraid she didn’t make it.”

He was silent a long moment, and she waited for him to speak. Finally, he said, “When?”

And that was the one question above all else that she’d hoped he wouldn’t ask. For a moment, Hunith considered lying – did Merlin really need to know, and now of all times? But no; his life was filled with so many lies already, to add another, to lie _to_ him, was not something she could bring herself to do. Not even to spare him from a horrible truth.

“I heard the rumours around last harvest…” So it had likely happened at least a few weeks before – right around when Merlin had been kidnapped and then set free.

Merlin sat down hard on the bed, his bag falling forgotten to the floor, and his face too numb to say what was going through his head.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...
> 
> When writing my Season 1 outline I really wanted to either make Excalibur or kill Uther here. Neither of these ended up being practical, so I just cut this episode short and went more with the moral dilemma around Merlin's more active role in saving Uther.
> 
> I couldn't make Excalibur yet because Merlin can't get to Dinas Emrys in time to free Aithusa and get her to make him an awesome dragon sword. And since she screwed up on Mordred's blade so it chipped like it was made out of glass or something I don't think she's Excalibur-worthy anyways. Seriously, in its very first battle a piece breaks off? I'd demand my money back. (On that note, Excalibur will not be made by Aithusa. And that's all I'll say on that until Season 2.)
> 
> And Uther can't die yet because Arthur hasn't had enough character development to become king. So yeah, Uther's sticking around... for now.


	9. 1x09 - The Fork in the Road (Part 2)

With a whispered word, the sparks from the crackling campfire flew high into the air, beating fake leathery wings and roaring out a little puffs of smoke from miniaturised great maws. Even if only spark and smoke, here was at least one dragon flying free tonight.

The soft, even breathing of his slumbering companions was a deafening prod in the nocturnal quiet, yet despite the faint nausea accompanying the thought of one of them suddenly waking, he made no move to smother his spark creation. It was stupid undoubtedly, but…

But…

But would it really be so bad, if they _did_ wake? Hadn’t he been itching for a confrontation? Hadn’t he been asking himself, over and over, how to push his friends towards thinking over magic? Well, waking to find a foot-long dragon composed entirely of sparks flitting about their heads – now, if that didn’t force them to think on it, nothing would.

 _Get a hold of yourself_ , Merlin told himself disgustedly, and with a thought doused his creation. It fell innocently to the ground in great white flakes. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.

Like Oilell. Oilell who was dead, who had been dead for a year now.

_Because of me._

How long did it take them to catch her? Surely not long, if his mother had heard by harvest time. All this time, almost the whole time since he’d left, she’d been dead. And he’d barely spared a thought for her, for what had become of her, for a vague promise he’d made and had no idea how to keep.

It was a wonder she hadn’t risen from her grave to haunt him for it. After saving Uther, he would deserve it.

_Try, to the best of my abilities, to free magic?_

He hadn’t. He’d had the perfect opportunity right there, and what had he done? He’d saved Uther. _Uther_ , whose purge had killed Oilell’s family. _Uther_ , who had outlawed magic in the first place.

Why had he done it, again?

Arms encircling his drawn up knees, the warmth rising off the fire licked his toes, his knees, his elbows, his wrists. But the smoke stung his eyes, and his core was cold. And staring at the white flecks dotting the grass, faintly illuminated in the flickering of the fire, he couldn’t think of a single answer.

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Arthur cursed the timing of his ultimatum yet again as he rode through fast falling darkness. If only he’d picked a different day to start a battle of wills with Merlin! Then he wouldn’t be out alone in the Forest of Ascetir, with neither attendants nor his father’s leave, chasing after his servant in the vague direction of a village that wasn’t even on the map he was trying to consult in the last legs of light the day afforded.

Rolling the wretched thing up, Arthur glanced at the sky where a few starry dots twinkled mockingly back, and dismounted. He was fiddling with the packs when he noticed a tendril of smoke rising above the treetops from further up the trail. Curious and hopeful, he grabbed his sword and approached. The low red hue of a campfire became discernible through the dark silhouettes of the trees. A little ways out from its dim glow a gawky, familiar silhouette stood tensed, sword drawn in a horrible stance.

And Arthur couldn’t resist. “I’d ask you for money, but I know you don’t have any.”

“Arthur!” Merlin spun around, nearly decapitating Arthur in his surprise.

Arthur winced at the warp of air swishing ineffectively above his head; Merlin had swung at him with the blade half-angled to the broad side. It was a good thing Arthur was here; commendable though Merlin’s bravery and love for his mother were, he was always worse than useless against bandits.

“Put the sword _down_ , Merlin, you look ridiculous.” Favouring his servant with an unimpressed look, Arthur strode past him to the campfire, calling over his shoulder. “And you can go bring my horse – it’s tethered in the clearing off the trail, about thirty paces back that way – and unpack my bags.”

Despite technically being on an indefinitely extended “day-off”, Merlin vanished to do just that with nary a word of protest, having slunk into the silence he’d fall into far too often lately. Arthur supposed he had good reason to sulk _now_ , with his village under threat, but Merlin had been like this long before his mother turned up, and for no good reason if you were to believe him (which Arthur wasn’t). Pressing the issue now, though, seemed rather insensitive.  So he just wordlessly took the night watch in Merlin’s place.

Though he’d been riding hard to catch up the previous day and hadn’t slept, when late the next morning they heard screams from the direction Hunith had indicated Ealdor lay, Arthur didn’t hesitate to nudge his mount into a gallop. Kanen, it would appear, was not an outlaw who adhered to any kind of personal code of honour; it was a day before his promised week of grace ended.

Driving away the bandits was easy, even without any men at his command. They clearly were unprepared for an actual fight, and retreated quickly in the confusion of Arthur’s arrival. But Arthur knew bandits, and knew the difference between driving _away_ and driving _off_.

“He'll be back.” Arthur grimly promised the villagers gathered in front of him. “And when he is, you must be ready for him. First of all, we have to prepare for –”

“Excuse me,” cut in a voice from the back of the crowd. “Am I the only one wondering who the hell this is?”

It was a young man, around Arthur’s age, with dark hair and a dark scowl directed straight at Arthur. Arthur fought to channel all the diplomacy drilled into him through the years as he introduced himself (to a scoff of _Yeah, and I'm Prince William of Ealdor_ ) because smacking around an unarmed peasant of the village he’d come to protect wasn’t exactly in concordance with the Code of Chivalry…  no matter how satisfying it might feel.

 _No king_ , his old tutor had liked to pointedly repeat whenever Arthur settled a score, _is beloved by all. There will always be someone who disagrees with you. What differentiates a just king from a tyrant is his response to verbal antagonism._

“You just want the honour and glory of battle! That's what drives men like you!”

… fantasizing about socking that glaring, hateful visage, though; now that was fair game.

“Will…” Merlin put in uncertainly, drawing the naysayer’s attention. Some kind of silent communication seemed to pass between them, for the naysayer’s scowl deepened, and Merlin’s face tightened in concern.

The exchange was swift, and familiar, like one word was all they needed to communicate. And it made something inside of Arthur curdle, even as the rest of the villagers pledged their support. The scowling man lingered in his thoughts as he prepared for training the next day, inside the tiny, cramped shack Merlin used to call home.

“That’s just Will,” Hunith said when he asked. Merlin was out gathering wood for training polearms, and Arthur told himself Merlin’s absence had nothing to do with why he was suddenly bringing this up. “He’s always been a bit difficult. Still, he’s a good boy, he’ll come around.”

“Not really a ‘boy’, though,” Arthur fished, trying for casual but not sure he was succeeding. “He looks like he’s my age.”

“Well, he’s just under two years older than Merlin, so I suppose,” Hunith said, adding salt to some grey lumpy sludge that Arthur was hoping tasted better than it looked. “But when you watch a boy grow, he’s forever a child in your eyes.”

“So you know him well, then?”

“Mmm,” Hunith agreed absently, hefting the pot over the fire, “He and Merlin have been thick as thieves since they were little, always doing everything together. Sometimes it almost feels like I have a second son, he’s over so often. Well, less now, now that Merlin’s moved away. Actually, that’s about when Will came over really surly – sort of sweet, when you think of it that way. He’s just missing his best friend.”

Something in Arthur twisted. Merlin’s best friend, was it?

“So anyway, don’t worry about him causing trouble – Will’s not that kind of kid. Worst he’ll do is grumble at you.”

That should be reassuring, and yet, somehow, Arthur didn’t feel any better.

Time for a new topic. Any new topic. “Anyways, about tomorrow, we might need salves for bruises and cuts from sparing. Do you have anything like that?”

“I do, but I’ll need to restock before the raiders return.” A calculating look flashed across her face, and she continued obviously more present in the conversation, “I’ll have to gather more herbs, and if Merlin came with me it would be a big help. He’s used to the area, and Gaius has probably taught him more than I’ve ever forgotten about herbs and medicines, and…”

Hunith continued on for some time, about how desperately necessary it was for Merlin to accompany her into the woods tomorrow, until Arthur was starting to get the feeling that going to get herbs wasn’t really about going to get herbs. Still, he didn’t have any experience with mother-son interactions, and her reasoning was difficult to argue with – not when Arthur didn’t have a role for Merlin to fill in the village that couldn’t easily be passed to someone else.

So Arthur incorporated it into his plans: he would train the men, Morgana and the women would prepare the weapons and traps, and Merlin and his mother would take care of all the medical preparations. And Merlin’s so-called ‘best friend’ would probably grit out prophesies of doom from the sidelines while making jabs at Arthur’s expense.

At least Merlin would probably be too busy picking herbs and whatnot to be ‘thick as thieves’ with this Will.

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The woods around Ealdor held many memories for Merlin. Most happy, but at present the one intruding on his thoughts was anything but. _These are the woods Ingild grabbed me in_ , he couldn’t help but think, and guilt twisted even tighter in his chest. If he’d just been less careless, he wouldn’t have needed to be rescued. Oilell wouldn’t have put herself on the line for him.

 _Promise you’ll do everything in your power to free magic_ , she’d asked him, her last request. One he’d fully intended to honor… and yet…

_The swords was descending, nearly upon Uther now, and all thought had fled… Words were pouring from his mouth… The figure in the sand started to shimmer…_

Lost in that distant February day, Merlin didn’t register Hunith glancing around furtively. His whole body jerked when she spoke up,

“Merlin, we need to talk.”

It took a moment for Merlin to reorient himself in the chill September morning, leaving the frigid trappings of winter buried in his mind.

Satisfied her son’s mind had returned to his body from whence it had drifted, Hunith took a deep breath. “About Oilell – it wasn’t your fault.”

Merlin’s heart sank. They were having this conversation again, were they? Hunith had been offering platitudes since she’d first broke the news to him, and Merlin was heartily sick of hearing them.

Despite his best unapproachable air, Hunith soldiered on with the talk that she’d obviously gotten him alone to have. “She was a grown woman, and she made her own decisions. The best way to honour her is to be thankful for her help, and live your life to its fullest.”

When Merlin opened his mouth, it was to say that he appreciated her concern but he didn’t want to talk about this and could they please just go back to picking herbs in silence?

Somehow, though, what came out was, “She asked me to free magic, you know.”

The words hung heavy in the air – for how could they do anything but? How could any one person free magic? It was such an impossible request, and yet she’d asked it, and he’d promised…

And now she was dead. Dead because she’d held up her side of the deal, while he…

His mother took a long moment before replying, “Well, I presume that’s something you want too and - as servant to a prince - you’re in a good position for it. Are you worried you won’t be able to?”

“Sort of…” Merlin mumbled half-heartedly, and then sighed, deciding he’d already jumped the fence and there was no more sense dithering. “More that I’ve missed my chance to.” Seeing his mother’s confusion, Merlin took a deep breath and started at the beginning.

“At Arthur’s coming-of-age ceremony, a knight in black armour broke in and threw down his gauntlet…”

It took him some time to get through everything, but somehow the telling was like unburdening a load carried for so long he’d forgotten how it felt to be free of it.

When he finished his mother didn’t say anything, just stared into the distance as if the forest hid an appropriate response to such a tale. Slowly, almost absently, she said, “Your father passed through these woods when he fled the Purge…”

Guilt stabbed at him; he’d never thought of that, and the browning leaves ringed crimson by the early morning light seemed to take on a new, sinister appearance. His mother was also looking at the forest as though seeing it for the first time, but her face was clearer for it, and her words now came steady and confident.

“This forest has been witness to many things, you know.” She put a hand to the trunk of a gnarled old tree, as though appreciating its presence. “Anyone fleeing to Essetir would’ve crossed it – Oilell included. Imagine, running for days and weeks on end to escape Uther’s reach, thinking you were free at last, only to then be snatched up by Ingild, perhaps even in the very woods you thought marked safety.”

Her hand dropped to her side and Hunith turned to face her son. “Being legal isn’t the same as being free, Merlin. You should know that better than anyone – especially here, of all places… This is where we taught you hide-and-seek… where you learned to hide yourself from ‘the men in red’ and ordinary villagers alike.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, gently turning him to the left, pointing off into the distance obscured by the treetops. “Over there are the Tunnels where we hid Aithusa when the neighbours started getting too suspicious. I once led a bounty hunter there, you know, possibly past this very clearing. These were the woods your father died in, and it’s here that Cenred’s sorcerer kidnapped you.”

She released her hold on him. “Uther’s not responsible for half of the injustice that’s gone on in these woods alone. How would killing him end the persecution against people like you?”

“It certainly wouldn’t hurt, though.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. How do you think Arthur would react if his father was killed by magic – killing in his place, no less?”

Merlin was silent, an unsettlingly vivid vision of Arthur swearing over his father’s grave to never forget the evils of sorcery rearing up unbidden in his mind.

Hunith placed a hand on his shoulder. “Life is seldom kind enough to give us a clear right and wrong choice. When you come to a crossroad in the woods, the choices are left and right, and you can’t see far enough to know which – if either – is a good path. You just observe the little signs, make your best guess, and keep going.”

“And what would your best guess be?”

“Living a country away from your crossroad, how am I to read the signs? I do, however, have one to go off of,” she smiled, nudging her son. “That’s how I know you made the right choice.”

“How?”

“Because I know _you_. You’re kind, and smart, and have a good heart. You always have. That’s why I trust your judgement, even if you don’t. If you thought that saving Uther was the right thing, then I do too. Your father, if he were here, would agree. He’d never want you to torture yourself with the condemnation of his ghost.”

The relief at hearing this, spoken so confidently and knowingly, could not entirely warm him. More than one ghost had been haunting him.

As though sensing this, Hunith sighed heavily, “I’d love to say that Oilell would understand, but they would be empty words. I quite frankly have no idea how she’d react. Neither of us knew her well enough for that. But not everybody Uther has wronged is so naïve as to think his death would solve all their problems. And for what it’s worth, Oilell never went after him either.”

“Maybe she just never had the opportunity.”

“Well, _I_ have never gone after Uther, and I have much the same cause to as you. I cannot say whether, put in your place, I would have saved him… but for the sake of my own integrity, if for no other reason, I hope I would.”

Merlin blinked. “And if it made everything worse? If Uther lived another twenty years, hunting sorcerers all the while?”

“At least I wouldn’t have made a martyr out of him. Better to live another twenty years and die a man than to die tomorrow and live on another hundred as a hero. But I don’t think he’ll live that long – Uther is a hard, cold man, who’s made many enemies and will continue to make more. You couldn’t stop them all if you were his personal bodyguard and your gifts known and accepted.”

Merlin was quiet a long moment, thinking over the scenario his mother painted. If their positions _had_ been flipped, he knew he would not have condemned her for showing Uther mercy. By that token, he could understand her acceptance of his own decisions, and believe his father would show him the same. Perhaps even Oilell, who from the little he’d known her had struck Merlin as far from vengeful, would forgive him for an act of mercy, whatever its outcome.

Yet, somehow it was harder to forgive himself. “I just… I’m just not sure what I’m doing,” the words felt very raw in his throat. “I came to Camelot to study magic, and I did, I _am_ , but with it… the more powerful I get, the more I feel I should be helping. Changing things. And yet, even if I become the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth, it’d still be no good. Freeing magic isn’t so easy as chanting a spell to make all the bad things go away.”

Hunith gave a sad smile in regretful agreement. “There’s no power on earth that can change what’s in people’s hearts.”

Merlin sighed, “I know Uther isn’t the problem, not really, but without him maybe people would be more receptive.”

“Because that’s always been so true of your life here?” Hunith asked archly, seventeen years of lies and hiding wrapped up in one look.

“So maybe not,” Merlin admitted with another sigh. “But if even Uther’s life or death is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things… then what _isn’t_? I said I’d free magic, but damned if I know how. I think, sometimes, that maybe if I can show Arthur it’s nothing to fear and despise then when he becomes king he can change things… But there’s no guarantee that he’ll change his beliefs, and even less that he’d be able to convince anyone else to if he does. And who’s to say how long it would take to uproot Arthur’s entire worldview in the first place, or how many people would die in the meantime?”

“I think,” Hunith said slowly, “for a task like the one you’ve shouldered, there can be no quick solution. Anyone who says otherwise does so ignoring the many and myriad causes of the persecution you face. I have no advice to give; if I did, I’d have given it long ago. All I can say is that if anyone can convince Uther Pendragon’s son of the goodness in magic, it’s you.”

“So if I can’t, everyone’s doomed?” he’d intended it in jest, but somehow the joke got lost on the way out.

“You know if you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have rated persuading Camelot’s prince to accept magic up with making sweetmeat out of clouds on a list of things that could ever happen. Along with said prince riding off to come to the rescue of some tiny insignificant village in another kingdom. Yet here he is. Because you care about Ealdor, and he cares about you.”

Merlin shook his head. “Arthur would do the same for any village. That’s just the way he is.”

“Well, you know him better than me,” there was unspoken disbelief in every word. “But I think you should give him a bit more credit. He likes you.”

“That’s because he doesn’t know me.”

“But if he _did_ , he’d have more cause to question your ‘inherent evil’ than that of any other sorcerer brought before him.”

“And if that’s still not enough?”

“Like I said, you should give him a bit more credit. In fact, you should give the both of you more credit. No rational, intelligent person could know you and not see your goodness.” She put an arm around his shoulders, drawing him into a small hug. “Have a little faith in yourself: you’re doing the best you can, and that’s all anyone could ever ask for.”

They stayed like that a long moment. Eventually, Merlin gave his mother a small smile, and gently pulled back. Wordlessly, they resumed gathered the herbs. Yet, somehow, the silence was now rather companionable, and the day seemed a bit brighter.

As they worked, the sun climbed through the sky. When it reached around noon-height his mother straightened, brushing the grass from her damp knees.

“I’d say that’s everything we need, don’t you?”

Merlin nodded, turning back to the village. “We should be heading back for lunch anyways.”

As they walked, Hunith asked, “So what are you planning to do when Kanen comes? Still disguise yourself?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin sighed. Truthfully, he’d been too preoccupied to give the situation with Kanen the thought it deserved. “Everyone would wonder where I’d gone. After coming all this way, especially with my friends tagging along to help out, it’d look odd for me to just vanish. Even if I manage to come up with some kind of excuse, the people here know too much about me – I don’t think they’d overlook the coinciding of my disappearance with a sorcerer’s sudden appearance the way Arthur and the others would.”

“Simmons at the very least would make the connection, and he’d hardly keep quiet over it.” Hunith agreed. “But didn’t you say you can do illusions now? Can’t you make a fake Merlin to take your place?”

Merlin shook his head. “I could glamour a broom or something with my appearance, but when it doesn’t walk or talk or even breath somebody’s going to think something’s a _little_ odd.”

“What about if you glamoured me as you?” she asked. “Your friend doesn’t want the women fighting; no one would miss me until it was all over.”

“Glamours aren’t easy to animate. It’s like, I don’t really know how to describe it… think of a glamour like a picture. The real world’s is a blank sheet, and you ‘draw’ an image atop it. As long as the sheet is still, the drawing looks like it’s really there. But if the sheet flutters, the image distorts and suddenly it’s not realistic anymore. You can offset this by continually ‘drawing’ more images to account for the movement, but if you’re doing that then you have to be paying _very_ close attention to what’s going on with your glamour. It’s not a true transformation; you can’t just slap one on something and walk away.”

“Well, could you do a transformation then?”

“I dunno… I’ve altered my own features and converted material types – you know, statue to dog, painting to snake, that sort of thing – before, but to fully change one person into another… I’ve read about the theory, and it’s pretty complicated. I don’t know if I can get it down in time, not enough to change a woman into me, anyways. The more physical differences between the two people, the harder it is to get it to hold.”

“So then, you think you could with a boy your age and roughly your build?” Hunith raised her brows meaningfully.

“That’s…” _right_ he was going to say, when her implication hit. “That’s … that’s _brilliant_! Thanks, Mother!”

She smiled as he took off, tearing through the woods shoving branches out of his face, until he was bent over gasping for air outside a familiar cottage. The door opened to a dour face raising a quizzical brow at his state, and Merlin panted out, grinning from ear to ear,

“Will, I need your help.”

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Back in Camelot when the idea first struck Arthur, and even on the road as he was fleshing out the logistics, training the villagers to mount their own defence had sounded… not easy, per se, but simple. Just show them a few basic blocks and strikes, drill them to perfection and run Kanen off with superior numbers. It was neat, and more than a one-time solution. After all, didn’t they say you should teach your subjects to fish, not just distribute some? Same time honoured principle.

Unfortunately, reality was a little more complicated.

“Alright,” Arthur said, forcing a smile brimming with confidence to his lips. One by one the not quite neat rows of village men turned to him. A spindly looking youth turned so fast he fell over, his practice rod tripping the beefy man beside him. Arthur hid his wince in an even wider grin. “Good work, men. Let’s wrap up for today. Tomorrow, we’ll go over how to flow these moves together, so be here at first light.”

The men dispersed, talking excitedly, and Arthur kept that confident smile plastered on his face. Once he was inside Merlin’s mother’s shack, though, he put his face in his hands and rubbed his tired facial muscles, resisting the urge to groan.

“Something wrong?” Morgana’s maidservant asked, looking up from where she was helping Hunith prepare dinner.

“No, just, ah, long day.” Arthur gave a show of stretching, and then turned to Hunith. “Where’s Merlin got to?” he asked, casting around for his own servant.

“He’ll be back in a minute,” Hunith said absently, focused intently on the grey lumpy sludge that did not in fact taste any better than it looked. Why were they even eating this crud again, they’d already had it for supper the night before, and breakfast today, _and_ lunch! “He’s just clarifying a few things about tomorrow with Will.”

Oh, well of course he was off with his _best friend_. Why had Arthur expected anything else?

The door creaked open just then and Arthur looked around hopefully, but it was just Morgana. Arthur sunk down in a wooden chair Hunith was borrowing from her neighbour’s house, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands as he watched the women flit around the tiny kitchen with tired eyes. It had been a long, long day.

Bowls were placed on the table. Morgana set one in front of him with a great _clack,_ glaring at him for some reason. As the last of the cutlery was being set out, the door banged open.

“Sorry I’m late!” Merlin burst in with a wide grin – wider than any Arthur had seen in a while. “Mmm, this smells good,” he snagged the seat across from Arthur, flouncing into the chair. “New recipe?”

It looked exactly the same as the other mush to Arthur, but Hunith nodded, “Guinevere had some great ideas for seasoning,” she said, taking the seat beside her son. Morgana and her maid joined her across the table, the maid smiling at the praise.

Arthur took an experimental sip and hid a grimace, swallowing with difficulty. Still tasted like flavourless mush of lumps to him. He put down his spoon. “So, how’d picking herbs go?”

Hunith swallowed her spoonful of lumps. “Oh fine.” She hesitated, glancing at her son. It was a look that Arthur knew all too well, from various servants and other subjects trying to tiptoe around him when they had something to say that they didn’t think he’d like.

“Oh really?” he asked, just wanting her to get straight to the point. He had no energy left for any tiptoeing. “Any trouble?”

“Well, we didn’t manage to get any wefreclove, but luckily it’s not that late in the season yet. There’s usually some still growing on the other side of the Tunnels this time of year. Merlin’s going to go check tomorrow, while I’m making up the poultices and potions.”

Morgana frowned, saving Arthur from voicing his concerns. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous to do alone?”

Merlin shrugged. “I’ll be fine.” He took a noisy sip of mush, and continuing casually, “Will agreed to come with me. His father was called up in war; he already knows a bit about fighting.”

Arthur picked up his spoon again, stuffing the bland lumpiness in his mouth and swallowing without chewing. The slight scratch against his windpipe almost felt good. “At least it’ll give him something productive to do.” The bitterness in his words surprised him; Arthur didn’t really know where it was coming from. “Keep him out of my hair.”

The others looked at each other at that and Morgana kicked him under the table, but nobody said anything. Arthur finished his mush in silence, and left to go over his plans for tomorrow; those men were going to need a lot of work, and he didn’t have time to focus on anything else.

Merlin left at first light in the morning, before even Arthur headed out to meet with the men. All day, he fought back a grimace. He’d never had to train men who swung swords like plows before, and it was painfully difficult to keep them from tripping over their own feet. He dragged himself back feeling like his shoulders were being worn down with lead weights. The only heartening thing that day came with Merlin’s unexpected news at dinner.

“… and then Will fell down the cliff and hurt his leg. After I finished bandaging him up I said, ‘Will, that’s definitely broken and there’s no way you’re going to be able to climb back up, how’re we going get you home?’ and he said, ‘You know, my father once told me about a man who lives in a cave around here called the Dragoon the Great, he’s a hermit who helped him once. Maybe he’d let me stay.’ And so we found the guy, and he remembered Will’s father and said yeah, of course Will was welcome to stay until his leg heals, and then we got talking with the guy and one thing led to another and he said he’ll come fight!”

“Good, we need all the men we can get,” Arthur said with more feeling than he meant to. He cleared his throat and hesitated over whether to come out and ask, but decided to just go for it. “Does this ‘Dragoon the Great’ know how to fight?”

“Well Will’s father was on campaign when he helped him out,” Merlin shrugged. “So probably. Besides, it can’t exactly be the safest thing in the world, living all alone in the mountains, can it? He probably has to fight off bandits and stuff all the time.”

Well, that was something, at least. “Alright, tell him training is at first light.”

“Er, I don’t think he’s planning on showing up until Kanen does.”

Arthur frowned. “How’s he supposed to know when Kanen’s coming if he’s not here?”

“… well… uh, he _did_ know Will and I were coming before we got there. I guess, um, you can see pretty far from his cave!”

Arthur did not return Merlin’s bright grin. “It still doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he just –”

“I don’t know, Arthur, he’s a crazy old hermit who lives on berries and sleeps in a cave, he doesn’t really think like you and me, does he?”

Arthur picked at his mush, pushing it around so it looked more eaten than it actually was. “I suppose so.”

He stretched, rising from the table and wandering out to the woods, both so he could be alone with his thoughts and escape Hunith’s attempts to “feed him up”. He breathed in the woody scent, thinking how nice and peaceful these woods were, and tried to breath out all the toxic anxieties of the last few days.

Light footfalls came behind him and Arthur looked over his shoulder. Morgana’s maid had followed him, a hatefully familiar bowl in hand. “Hunith thought you might still be hungry.”

He took the bowl with a forced grin and a _thanks_ , muttering to himself as she turned away, “I think.”

The woman spun around, scowling something surprisingly fearsome. “Food is scarce for these people, you shouldn't turn your nose up at it!”

Arthur just stared at her. Admittedly he didn’t know this woman well, but he’d never seen her be anything other than quiet and demure, the ideal maidservant. This was… unexpected.

And yet… not in a bad way.

She became flustered, dropping her eyes and wringing her hands. “Oh, no. I-I shouldn't've spoken to you like that. I'm sorry.”

“No, you were right.” Arthur suppressed a sigh and took a large spoonful, telling himself at least he was keeping up his strength. He was going to need it for more training tomorrow. “I appreciate your speaking up.”

She blinked at him, and then a slow grin made its way across her face, brightening it. He’d never noticed how pretty she was before. “Well, I’ll not make a habit of it,” she said with a half-laugh, then cleared her throat and looked away. She bounced on her feet a little, glancing in random directions, then said with the air of one keen to change the topic. “Well, if there’s one good thing out of all this, it’s that Merlin seems to be cheering up. You know, I think the distraction is helping him start to finally move on.”

Arthur lowered the spoon, his full concentration suddenly on the maidservant and whatever it was she knew about his servant. “Move on?”

She looked taken aback. “Oh I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” She bit her lip, remaining silent. Arthur cast about for her name, sounding it out warningly, “Guine _vere_ , knew what?” She looked away, her shoulders tensing. Arthur sighed, glancing around for witnesses before quietly admitting, “I’m worried about him.”

She looked up, meeting Arthur’s eyes. Whatever she saw in them made her soften. “Well, I don’t want to go into it in too much detail,” she twirled one of her dark curls anxiously, glancing around and lowering her voice. “There was this girl but, well, it just wasn’t meant to be. Poor Merlin, he’s been really down about it all, and now this happens… well, at least it’s keeping his mind off her. She probably wasn’t good enough for him anyways.”

Arthur took a large gulp of mush to keep himself from having to respond. _This_ was why Merlin had been so out of it for so long? Because of a _girl_? How… strange that it hadn’t occurred to him. Now that he thought about it, all the signs were there. The constant distraction, the far off glances, the big soulful and sad eyes that seemed to be constantly asking _why_ , the reticence on what was troubling him… it should have been obvious that Merlin was lovesick.

He felt strangely lighter, with that mystery explained. Merlin would get over the girl, they’d clear up this mess with Kanen, and things could finally go back to how they should be.

He shoveled more of the grey gunk down his throat, even scraping the bottom of the bowl for good measure, and handed it back to Guinevere. She smiled at this, and he smiled back somewhat fondly, glad she’d followed him into the woods.

“Well, let’s hope this helpful hermit Merlin’s found is a sign that our luck is starting to look up.”

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Will was an extraordinarily honest guy. One would think, given how much people claimed to love this trait, that he would also be a popular one too, but no. No, Will had long since concluded that when people said things like “I just want him to be honest with me” what they actually meant was “I just want him to convince me that his nice-sounding bullshit is the truth.” Honesty was hard, bitter, and rarely as appreciated as was claimed. Ironically, the only person who could take the blunt force of Will’s honest nature was the biggest liar he knew.

And so he’d always secretly expected that one day Merlin would come running to him and say “I’m in trouble, please, you’ve got to help me tell one real big whooper.”

Though, he hadn’t expected Merlin to be quite so prepared.

“So I just have to wear this amulet-thing and act like you for half an hour or so, yes?” he asked, watching Merlin mumble mumbo-jumbo and pass his hands over the crystal he’d dipped in some weird magic juice like two hundred times already.

“ _Yes_ , Will,” Merlin said exasperatedly once he’d finished his mumbo-jumbo and was dipping the crystal in Hunith’s spare cooking pot yet again. He flipped a page in the massive book (and since when did Merlin have such luxury items as books?) he had hovering off to the side (and since when could he do that without sparing it the least bit of attention?) and pulled the crystal (and since when did he have something so expensive as a _crystal_?) out of the now sky blue gunk.

“So _why_ do I have to be here for this part?” Because really, this was weird, even by hanging-out-with-Merlin standards of weird.

Sure, he’d more or less gotten used to randomly glowing eyes and things moving by themselves, but that was different. That was more like… having a friend who had an extra arm, or something, and so happened to be able to do some things Will couldn’t, being only a regular two-armed bloke. But this was not some inborn nifty little trick like that. This clearly needed study, time, and props, and accomplished something so unbelievable that Will couldn’t help but wonder what other things Merlin was now capable of.

(That, and truthfully it reminded him a little too much of a certain murderous nutcase whose magic had seemed much more structured and less natural than Merlin’s. But, despite glaring evidence like a missing dragon and suddenly knowing Merlin had magic, for the sake of his sanity Will was determined to write that whole weirdness off as a very strange dream, and so he was most definitely not thinking of it now.)

Point being, Will wasn’t exactly comfortable being here, especially since there didn’t seem to even be any need for his presence just yet.

“Look, if you want to wander around alone in the woods with Kanen on the loose, don’t let me stop you,” Merlin bit out, irritated. Which, well, so maybe Will had asked him this a dozen or three times already, but this ritual-y thing was taking _forever_ , so who could really blame him? He’d been stuck hiding out in the Tunnels for three days now, and was beginning to sympathise with that dragon’s decision to just sleep the time away. Hiding was bloody _boring_. “But you can’t go back to the village if supposedly you’ve broken your leg and are hanging out with your father’s old war buddy, so would you just shut up and deal with it?”

Easy for him to say – _Merlin_ wasn’t the one all but exiled until the time came for him to mill around a battle doing nothing but looking as Merlin-y as he could manage.

“Besides,” Merlin said, waving his hand over the crystal yet _again_ and muttering nonsense. He smiled, and held it out to Will. “There, done. Happy?”

Will rolled his eyes and took it with a huff, slipping it over his neck. It felt like he’d been doused in cold water. Holding out his hands, he noticed they were paler and thinner than usual, and the trapping scar on his left thumb was missing. He glanced up, looking at Merlin questioningly.

“Well?”

Merlin looked a bit disconcerted, but grinned, “You look like my long lost twin.”

Will took off the amulet, watching his hands shorten, and put it back on, watching them lengthen and thin.  Then he took it off and shoved it in his pocket. “Seems to work okay.”

And strange, how easy Merlin made it all look. Like Kanen wasn’t someone who had all of Ealdor quaking, but someone so easy to defeat the only issue worth focusing on was how to do so anonymously.

“You sure you’ll be fine for the actually fighting bit?” Will asked.

Merlin shrugged like taking on a horde of bandits was just a bothersome Tuesday chore. His nonchalance was strangely contagious. “I’ve faced worse. Did I tell you about the afanc and griffin?”

“Yep,” Will grunted, as they’d already whiled away a good deal of time in this ridiculously long ritual – whoever heard of needing three moon rises for something to set, and for the “simple” version of it no less! – and were rapidly running out of things to say to each other.

Merlin may have been away for a whole year, but Ealdor hadn’t really changed all that much in his absence. And, though Camelot was apparently way more eventful, there was only so long Merlin could drag his stories out for. They’d been through how Will should address Merlin’s Camelot friends in order to stay in character and gone through various plans for sneaking “Dragoon” out over and over again, until they were both heartily sick of it.

“Scenario One,” Will sighed, resigned to going through their escape plans again from lack of anything else to do. “Arthur is running at you ready to skewer you for having the audacity to save us all with a perfectly legal gift in a kingdom that isn’t even his…”

“I still don’t see why this is Scenario One,” Merlin grumbled yet again. “Why can’t the one where he holds a feast in my honour be Scenario One?”

Will didn’t dignify that with a reply, though he did shoot Merlin a withering look. Merlin had been entirely too eager in some of the Scenarios they concocted. Some of them were just him being silly, but some of the others…

If there was anything Will dreaded about the coming fight, it was the Camelot princeling’s reaction. Because there was a light in Merlin’s eyes when he’d described some of the scenarios of Arthur learning “Dragoon” had magic, and Will didn’t want to watch that light be stamped out.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

After an only slightly less pitiful early morning training, Arthur called the men into the common building for an emergency strategy meeting – not that he called it that. Keeping up morale was _everything_.

“We're not going to be able to defend Ealdor with sword and sinew alone,” he was saying grimly. “We're going to need a plan. We need to find some way of limiting their mobility and drawing them into a trap. If we fight them on their terms, then...”

A woman’s scream cut him off, and Arthur was out the door before the men had gotten to his feet. A horse was riding into town and across its back was a slumped figure.

A scrap of parchment was pinned to the man’s back with an arrow. _Make the most of this day, it will be your last._

None of the villagers blamed Arthur. The dead man’s wife sobbed over his body, his children sniffling into her sides, but they did not turn and scream curses at him. The village men were somber, but still shuffled back into the common building, asking _what do we do_ rather than hurling accusations. Arthur ghosted through his plan, nodding to the villager’s input and modifying it to their suggestions. He excused himself at the first opportunity.

He sat outside Hunith’s hut, so as to not have to face those within, and stared at the ground, so as to not meet any of the villagers’ trusting eyes ( _so trusting why were they trusting didn’t they know couldn’t they see that it was all his fault_ ). He relished the sharp, monotonous _shhhk_ of the whetstone passing over his blade.

A set of familiar scruffy boots entered his field of vision. “I heard about what happened,” Merlin said quietly, sitting down next to him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t it? I'm treating these men like soldiers, and they're not. You should see them fight. They...they haven't got a clue! You need to tell them all to leave before Kanen returns.”

“No, we're going to stay.” Merlin said sharply, craning his neck forward to forcibly meeting Arthur’s eyes. “We're going to fight, and we're going to win.”

“How?” Arthur demanded, thinking of the hopeless spectacle that was the training sessions.

“Because they believe they can. Because everyone believes in _you_ ,” a wry, almost ironic smile made its way across Merlin’s face. “They’ve seen you fight, they’ve seen how much effort you’re putting in for them when they’re not even your subjects. They know you care about them a damn sight more than anyone else ever has.”

“And that belief could have them all slaughtered.”

“Or they could all starve when winter comes and there’s no food. Sometimes you need to gamble to win. They’ve chosen you as their best bet, but this is _their_ village. They’re going to fight tooth and nail to defend it, whether you stand by their side or not. But they only have real hope it’ll be worth more than a brave last stand because you’ve given it to them.”

“They barely even know me.”

“But I do. You’re brave and rude and pigheaded, and you’ve faced bandits and raiders and afancs and griffins and the wrath of your even more pigheaded father and come out in one piece. _I’ve_ faced half those things with you and my sword swinging is twice as hopeless as anyone else in this village and I’m still in one piece, so clearly you’re doing something right.” Merlin cracked a grin, and Arthur found himself returning it.

Maybe Merlin didn’t tell him about his doomed crush, or his childhood friends, or really anything about his life outside of work. But this… this was worth far more than such small talk, or all the things that friends should supposedly be able to answer about each other.

“Thank you,” Arthur clamped Merlin on the shoulder and stood. “I’m going to see how the trap’s coming along.”

Merlin rose as well. “I’m off to tell Dragoon about tomorrow.”

The night passed all too quickly and soon Arthur was getting ready for the big battle, overseeing the last of the trap preparations and trying to find where Merlin had disappeared to – honestly, he wasn’t even suited up yet, and where _could_ he even vanish off to in somewhere this tiny anyways? – when Hunith came to him.

“Arthur, Dragoon is here to see you.”

A man walked through the door, closely followed by a subdued Merlin in armour. An _old_ man, with a great silvery beard and everything, who looked strangely fami- wait a minute…

“Emrys?!” Arthur did not quite choke, but it was a far nearer miss than it should be for a future king drilled in all matters of poise and diplomatic grace.

“You young people and your shouting,” the old man grumbled in an all too familiar voice. “Really, there’s no need. I am only Emrys among my own people. To outsiders, I prefer ‘Dragoon the Great’ – much more impressive sounding to beslubbering rump-fed bleatbrains looking for cheap little druid tricks.”

Arthur just stared, and stared some more, not even listening to the old druid because what was he doing here – okay, so maybe it made sense that he hadn’t stuck around Camelot but wait if he supposedly lived in a cave around here then how had he known about the whole Mordred situation and gotten there so fast and why wasn’t he with the rest of the druids and how had he met Will’s father and why had he helped him and why was he helping them now and how did Will’s mysterious aid turn out to be some random passing acquaintance and was it just Arthur or was this a really really weird coincidence and – and – and…

“What are you doing here?” burst out of him, then he whirled on Merlin without waiting for Emrys’ answer. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Emrys?” Merlin repeated, almost woodenly, and for some reason the old man gave him a grumpy glare. Merlin looked closer at the face, and said in a very stilted manner. “I suppose it is. You know, it was just so dark the first time I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes at the weak excuse. He opened his mouth to lay into Merlin, but before he could Emrys was shouting. “Well, are there bandits here or not! Because I’ll have you know my rheumatism does not appreciate hiking all up and down mountains. It was promised bandits in compensation. And I don’t see any! Are you telling me I dragged my old bones all this way for nothing!”

Arthur didn’t respond to this blathering; he just frowned. This whole situation was pretty fishy. Emrys was a doddery old man who couldn’t even make it to the Darkling Woods without being carried, and apparently had trouble getting here as well. How was he to fight? And anyways, weren’t druids pacifists? No druid Arthur had ever come across had a sword and Emrys wasn’t carrying one now, so how…?

_Wait…_

_Druids_ …

_The Old Religion…_

_Magic_ …

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “How _are_ you going to fight?”

“You’ll see. So impatient. But know this: this land is very different to the one you know, and the laws you are accustomed to do not translate to the order of things here.”

That was not at all reassuring. “And am I to take it then that there is a specific law that you –”

“Arthur!” Morgana called, running over. “Kanen and his men have crossed the river.”

Damn it, could Kanen have picked a more inconvenient time? Arthur glared at the old druid, resolving to keep a watchful eye on him, and warned, “This isn’t over. We’ll continue this later, Emrys.”

Arthur immediately regretted using the name, for Morgana’s eyes lit up and snapped to the old man with ill-disguised eagerness. Arthur turned away, pretending not to hear the not all that hushed, _How’s Mordred?_

Arthur barked loudly, “Merlin!”

Merlin obediently, yet oddly silently, came, falling into step behind Arthur. Arthur stomped over to their hiding spot, all the while deaf to Morgana, who was most definitely _not_ happily introducing herself to the most maddeningly mysterious man of their acquaintance. Nor did he hear her part with a _we should talk more later_ – and if he did, that had nothing at all to do with his tenseness. That was solely the result of Emrys crouching down behind him, groaning about his sore joints. Arthur had to keep himself from snapping back, in case Emrys took it as an invitation to grumble as loudly as he had in the Darkling Wood. The man knew _nothing_ about sneaking around.

Hoofs sounded from the forest, and Kanen rode through the village gate. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” the bandit sang out to the ostensibly deserted village, smirking.

Guinevere and a village woman pulled up a gate, trapping the bandits, limiting the mobility of their steads. Arthur waited, but no fire sparked around them. He bit his lip, glaring at Morgana’s hiding spot, wondering what was taking her so bloody long…

Emrys coughed, and Arthur whipped his head around to glare at him for jeopardising their position, the useless old senile sack of bones - !

Flame leapt along the oil lines, encircling Kanen’s men, and Emrys opened blue eyes twinkling in smug mirth. _Suspiciously_ smug mirth. But the bandits’ war cries distracted Arthur, and he led the ambush with a shout.

Yet as he parried lunges and sunk steel into flesh, dying flickers of orange-red caught his eye and he found them drawn back to the suspicious druid. Emrys was standing close by Merlin – and _when had that happened_. Arthur kicked away his opponent, fighting his way over, trying to crane around the chaos of untrained fighters to spot Merlin again.

There – he found him! But the wind picked up, cycling oddly and blowing dust into the air, and Merlin and Emrys vanished from sight. Arthur froze as a twister rose high into the air, throwing fighters back indiscriminately. Kanen’s men shouted in terror. Their steads bolted, the men dogging their galloping steps like the hounds of hell were nipping their heels. Kanen stared after them, rage twisting his face, and then his eyes snapped to Arthur’s.

“Pendragon!” he snarled, charging Arthur.

Arthur moved instinctively – bandits here, as in Camelot, relied more on number than skill, it would seem. It was the work of moments to run Kanen through, and then Arthur was striding past his collapsed form, to the doddery old man standing by the dissipated twister.

“YOU!” it was hard to marshal the anger pounding through his skull into coherent speech.

“ _Yeeees_?” Emrys drawled mockingly, but Arthur could see worry in those blue eyes.

It did not calm him. What business did Emrys have to worry now, after the fact? After he’d already made his choice! “Wind like that doesn't just appear from nowhere. I know magic when I see it!”

“Arthur, for goodness sake!” came an unexpected voice, and Arthur turned to see Morgana striding up to him, planting herself unnervingly close. Her green eyes flashed like flints of jade. “Get a grip – he just saved all our lives!”

“He’s a sorcerer!” Oh, why was he even bothering – this was _Morgana_ , she wasn’t going to see reason! Arthur looked to Merlin, needing some kind of rock of common sense to shore himself up for this argument.

But Merlin was scowling at him. “And what law, exactly, does that break _here_?”

Arthur opened his mouth, closed it, and couldn’t seem to find the words. Because sorcery _wasn’t_ outlawed in Essetir, he remembered that from the peace talks with Cenred. It was a major point of contention that was only truly resolved after Cenred’s Court Sorcerer died and he couldn’t find another one (apparently the sorcerer had been in the habit of killing off competition, ‘ _clear proof of the true nature of his kind’_ Arthur’s father had said).

But just because Cenred didn’t outlaw it didn’t make it _right_! And Cenred’s morals were questionable at best; everyone knew he was a bastard upstart who killed his own father for the throne, and if that weren’t enough just look at how well he’d dealt with Ealdor’s problems! Glancing around, Arthur saw the villagers had all backed away, eying Emrys as fearfully as Arthur’s own subjects would.

Feeling firm again, Arthur opened his mouth to argue that if he could come here to save a village from bandits he could save them from a sorcerer… but the words just wouldn’t come out. What, exactly, was he “saving” them from, when Emrys had driven the bandits off? And _how_ , exactly, would he go about doing so? He couldn’t banish the man; he was already in another kingdom! He had no dungeons to hold him in. But he could hardly lynch him here nor drag him back to Camelot for trial – repaying salvation with death was hardly just… and oh God he’d just thought of sorcery as salvation, what was wrong with him?

Arthur glanced from Merlin to Morgana’s scowling visages, as though somewhere there lay the words eluding him. Then Morgana drew his eye; her eyes were widening at something just past his shoulder.

“Arthur!” she cried, and tackled him.

There was a confused rush of sky, the all too familiar _twang_ of a crossbow, a _snap_ like a stick breaking, and something warm and wet dripping onto his face. A scream of horror went up from the surrounding villagers, Guinevere’s echoing above the rest with a hair-raising shriek of,

“My lady!”

Guinevere darted forwards, pulling Morgana off of Arthur, clutching her upright against her. Morgana moaned as she swayed. Flecks of red dotted the ground below, blood dripping from the arrow shaft piercing Morgana’s armour, just above her heart.

Turning to Merlin, Guinevere begged, “Please, she needs help.”

But Merlin was grey-faced and frozen, looking panicked at being addressed. Hunith came running forwards, skirts hitched above her knees, and knelt down beside Morgana. Her face tightened at what she saw.

“Merlin, bring me some bandages and the leftmost jar on the second shelf,” Hunith ordered crisply. She sounded perfectly in control of the situation, but Arthur knew what a person trying to keep everyone from panicking while inwardly doing so themselves looked like; usually, that was his role.

Morgana’s head slumped forwards, and only Guinevere’s grip on her shoulders kept her upright. They had precious little time.

Emrys knelt in front of her, mumbling hair-raising nonsense as he pulled the arrow from her chest. Morgana spasmed, but didn’t wake. Arthur’s hand fell to his sword, but he made no move to draw it. Blood spurted, and Hunith hastily yanked off the mail, pressing her headscarf against the open wound. Merlin came sprinting back, hovering anxiously as Hunith cleaned the wound, clutching the bandages white-fingered.

Before their very eyes, though, the blood clotted, scabbing over into a wound that looked days, if not weeks, old, and well on its way to healing. Emrys didn’t stop muttering, though, and some colour returned to Morgana’s face. Her eyes fluttered open, blinking dazedly at nothing.

“You’re all right now, dear,” Hunith said soothingly. “Everything’s going to be just fine. Now, let’s get you inside, and you can have a nice lie down, and you’ll feel better in no time.” Merlin and Guinevere helped Morgana to her feet, pointing her in the direction of Hunith’s hut. They slung her arms across their shoulders, bearing most of her weight as she stumbled forward.

Emrys rose, his old bones creaking, and faced Arthur, silently awaiting judgement. Arthur stared back at this man, at this _sorcerer_ , who’d come to Camelot knowing its laws, who’d broke into the citadel to rescue a child,  who’d been insolent and slow and _kicked_ Arthur, who’d come to Ealdor’s aid, who’d used _magic_ , who’d saved Morgana without a second thought, who’d _used magic to save her_ while Arthur stood by helpless.

He should thank him, but the man was a _sorcerer_ – he couldn’t have done it out of the goodness of his heart. There had to be some reason, some trick or plot to it all…! Yet, nothing was coming to mind. Wouldn’t it have been easier to leave Morgana to her fate and use the distraction to escape? Or even easier, just not show up at all and leave all Ealdor to its fate? What exactly made the man leave his hermit lifestyle and come down from his cave today? Compassion was the only thing Arthur could think of, but magic corrupted, his father always said so and just look at all the times he’d been proven right!

His conscience was screaming at him, urging him to act, but he couldn’t make out its words. _Do the right thing_ , it screamed, but he couldn’t tell what that was.

The man was still staring at him, waiting.

“Just… just go!” Arthur finally said, turning away and following the others to Morgana’s bedside.

Maybe that would silence his screaming conscience for a while.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Disappointment was not possible without anticipation. If you never hoped for anything, you would never see those hopes dashed.

When and why had he dared nurture hope?

Curled into a ball in Old Ann’s deserted house, Merlin breathed out a heavy sigh, sending great clouds of dust up into the air that set his eyes watering. He bit back a cough; although he no longer wore Emrys’ face, if somebody were to hear him and come check out the noise, it would be difficult to explain why there were two Merlins in the village.

It felt like forever before he saw his own face slip into Old Ann’s house.

“Sorry I’m late.” Will took off the amulet, shrugging the kinks out of his shoulders and beginning to undress. “I went with the one about feeding the animals, so we’ve got about three minutes before they start to think something’s weird.”

Merlin nodded, pushing himself upright. “How’s Morgana?”

“Hunith says she’ll be fine.”

Merlin hesitated, not sure if he wanted to know. “And Arthur?” even to his ears, his voice sounded small.

“Pissy.” Will said bluntly. “Spent forever interrogating me. _What do you know about Emrys_ – that kind of thing.”

Merlin’s gut twisted. “What did you tell him?”

“You know, just that you’d never met Emrys before this whole mess and didn’t know anything about him other than what you’d already told him.” Will handed him his belt. “Says he wants to talk to real-me when I get back. I can’t wait to face him as not-you and tell him to sod off and mind his own business.”

Merlin sighed. He’d tried not to anticipate any of the, should he say, “more optimistic” scenarios he’d half-jokingly come up with… but it had been impossible not to hope for Arthur to take the revelation of “Emrys” as a sorcerer at least a little better than he had.

Merlin had even picked the most benign way to get rid of bandits he could imagine, not wanting Arthur’s first glimpse of “helpful” magic to be excessively bloody. It was more scare tactics than an actual attack, but it made the horses bolt and the bandits scatter. It saved Ealdor, and all of them with it.

But still Arthur could not really be said to have taken it “well”. The fact that he’d let Emrys go was small comfort in comparison to Merlin’s impossibly high hopes.

Maybe he just shouldn’t dream anymore – or at least not dream so big.

“Should I be concerned about him confronting me ‘again’?”

“Well, he’s stomped off into the woods to in a fine sulk, so you’ll probably be fine for now,” Will scoffed. Then he grew more serious, and with unusual gentleness asked, “More importantly, are you ok to face him?”

Merlin looked down. He was finding it hard to meet Will’s eyes and say _yes, of course_.

Because he’d never had to deal with anything like this before. This… this outing of his magic but yet not, where he’d revealed himself using another face. Where Arthur didn’t not know it was Merlin who was the sorcerer, and so he could just head back and resume his life normally, with nothing changed… except now he knew what _would._

Because if Merlin _hadn’t_ used a disguise, if Arthur _had_ known who he was… somehow, Merlin couldn’t convince himself he’d react all that differently. If anything, it would have just thrown a heap of lies and perceived betrayal into the mix. And Arthur would have spat at him to leave, would have cut him out of his life and sent him into exile. Nothing would have been the same ever again.

But Merlin _had_ used a disguise, and Arthur _didn’t_ know, so he got away with it without any consequences… except witnessing what they would be, and having to go back anyways.

“Merlin?” Will asked softly.

And Merlin looked up to see his best friend since the age of four, his best friend who’d known about and accepted his magic for nearly ten years now, looking at him in concern. And he was struck with a thought.

“Will, what did you think of magic before you found out I had it?”

This was evidently the last thing Will had expected him to say.

“Um… I dunno? That it could cause, like, stillborn calves and failed crops and whatnot? I don’t remember ever thinking much on it.”

Merlin’s heart sank. _Even Will…_ “So you thought it was evil?”

“Evil’s kind of a strong word. Like I said, I don’t remember giving it much thought. I just kind of believed the things everyone else believed because they believed them.”

“So what changed?”

Will gave him a look of pure disbelief. “What changed? I found out my best friend is a sorcerer!”

“But you never accused me or even asked if I’d ever cursed calves or killed crops or anything. Why not?”

“Because what earthly reason would you have to do those things!” Will was still looking at him like he had taken one too many blows to the head. “Why the hell would you kill the crops that feed you? I mean, sure, maybe you could hike over to Aldre curse their crops, but just… why? It’s not really something you’d do. Even when I was pissed as hell and questioning everything I knew about you, it never occurred to me that you were some cackling villain from some half-baked fairytale going around causing random problems for shits and giggles. You were way too much of a little mumma’s boy for that.”

“Thanks,” Merlin tried for sarcastic, but had a feeling his irrepressible grin was giving him away. At least someone had faith in him.

If only he could be so certain of everyone else.

As though the latter thought was painted on his face, Will hurried to say, “Don’t expect the same kind of logic to enter the brain of His Royal Pratness Sir _I Know Magic When I See It!_ People like him, they think they always know best and are right about everything, and screw all evidence to the contrary.”

“Arthur’s not like that,” Merlin defended.

Will raised a single-eyebrow and didn’t deign to reply, conveying all his disbelief in a single look.

“Well, maybe he’s a little like that,” Merlin admitted. “But he doesn’t… he doesn’t just blindly believe what he’s been taught when staring at proof otherwise.”

“Looked to me he was more than happy to keep on believing all magic should just disappear off the face of the earth even after it saved this village and his little lady love’s life.”

“They’re not together,” Merlin immediately refuted, before addressing the main argument. “And I know Arthur didn’t take it… well… but if he’d really been blindly following his father’s beliefs, I wouldn’t still be breathing… or, well, I’d have had to fight to keep breathing, at least. Hell, if he really blindly followed Uther, then he wouldn’t have come here in the first place!”

Will was looking at him strangely now, doubtlessly wondering why he was defending the guy who’d turned on him the second he’d found out. Merlin bit his lip; he could ask himself the same question, except… except Arthur had flaws, certainly, and his attitude towards magic left a lot to be desired, true… but he wasn’t like Will was picturing.

“Uther, when he heard about Ealdor’s situation, basically said that’s too bad but not his problem. Never mind that he’d have no compunctions if it was sorcerers we’d reported. Arthur straight up asked permission to send men over, and Uther shot that down in a second. I don’t envy whoever drew the short stick on tell the king where his son’s gone.”

“Drama queen,” Will muttered, but looked kind of begrudgingly, skeptically impressed. And he didn’t know the half of it. This is far from Arthur’s first time going against his father’s ruling for a cause he thought was right. There was the incident with Nimueh’s poison, fighting the afanc, standing up for Lancelot, smuggling out Mordred from under Uther’s very nose...

“Yeah, he kind of is,” Merlin said with the ghost of a smile. Everything was still all wrong, and he still had to go back to pretending to be someone he wasn’t for people who’d rejected him as he was, but…

But he picked up the clothes Will had chucked down beside him, and finally started to change. Just because things turned out disappointingly today didn’t mean they always would. Arthur had righted his own wrongs before; he might still do so again.

In any case, staying here forever would do Merlin no good. His friends were waiting for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be (sort of) continued... (I mean, obviously the "save Ealdor" plot point is over. The impact on the characters on the other hand...)
> 
> Aaand, surprisingly, Will didn’t die here. I didn’t plan on it, but getting to the end of my episode outline I realised it would cause a whole smorges board of problems if he died or even got injured while disguised as Merlin. I didn’t want to deal with any of them, so Morgana got shot and healed instead (since, you know, Merlin had four months of nothing to do but help Gaius and study in my version, and can definitely heal simple puncture wounds).
> 
> I had a hard time writing Hunith’s advice scene until I realised, you know what? If Merlin had said that he knowingly and willingly stood by and just let Uther die, she would have justified his inaction, told him he did what he thought was right, and to stop blaming himself for a tough choice forced on him months ago. Hunith is super biased that way, as is her prerogative as a mother. Once I realised Hunith =/= Gaius (who has more of an opinion on the politics of Camelot, and whose advice is thus full of entirely different biases), the scene started to finally come together.


	10. 1x10 - The Fork in the Road (Part 3)

It had been two days since the Battle of Ealdor, and in Morgana’s opinion she was more than healed enough to jump on a horse and head on back to Camelot. Merlin and Hunith disagreed, and therefore so did everyone else. This, however, put Morgana in a rather disagreeable mood.

Gwen sat by her side, keeping up a steady stream of cheery conversation, hoping to improve her mistress’ spirits. She was careful to steer all conversation far from Emrys and Arthur, for woe betide the one foolish enough to mention either in Morgana’s earshot when she was already snappish.

Unfortunately, the world was full of fools.

Gwen genuinely liked the villagers; they were a down-to-earth bunch, close knit and toughened by the harsh life they eked out of the land they fought so bravely for. But there existed in any crowd one person one just could not get on with, and for Gwen that was a certain old man who’d accosted her on her first full day in the village.

She’d been leaning down, reaching for another blade to sharpen, when suddenly there was a vise-like grip on her wrist. She’d glanced up, alarmed, to meet a sunken, aged face with wild eyes darting frantically around. The grip tightened, painfully so, and jerked her close – so close she could smell alcohol on his breath.

“I need to speak to the prince of Camelot,” the man said urgently, still glancing in every direction as though expecting something to jump out at him.

Gwen disentangled her arm from his grip, a surprisingly hard task considering his age and frail frame. “Prince Arthur is busy training at the moment,” she said warily. “If you’d but wait until evening then I’m sure he’d be happy to hear whatever grievance you have.”

“No, you don’t understand!” the man snapped. “If I wait they’ll stop me, they’ll stop me. They don’t want me to talk, they’re trying to keep me away, they say I’ll ruin everything if I talk but I won’t because everything’s already ruined don’t you see but if I talk I can fix it, I can finally fix it, but they won’t let me talk, they’ll stop me, they don’t want me to talk so they’ll stop me -”

It was clear he wasn’t going to clarify anytime soon, so Gwen interrupted, “Who will stop you?”

“The others! They won’t see – they’re too content to be led blindfolded like pigs to the slaughter. And you!” he grabbed her again, pulling her uncomfortably close, his wild eyes locked onto her own. “You don’t see either! But you’re from Camelot, you will! You must, you must, you’re from Camelot, you must! And the prince! Uther Pendragon’s son, he’ll see! He’ll listen!”

“Um…” Unsure of how to respond to… _that_ … Gwen glanced around for someone, anyone, to help her out.

She caught the eye of a redheaded girl hanging a dish cloth by her window. The girl froze, her eyes travelling from Gwen to the old man, widening with something unencouragingly like horror. The door to her house was flinging open a moment later, she and a woman that could only be her mother racing forwards and prying the man off Gwen.

The woman said soothingly, pointing him in the opposite direction and starting forwards, “C’mon, I think you’ve had too much to drink again, let’s get you home –”

The old man struggled against her. “Goddamn it, Catrin, let go of me! Let go, I say!” The woman paid no attention, just continued dragging him down the street. “I speak only the truth! You all can just try and hide it, I’ll tell them for sure! You may lie and pretend to see nothing, but someday it will all come out and then you’ll be sorry! You can’t silence me forever!”

His incoherent babbling was cut off as the woman dragged him into a little shack on the outskirts of the village, slamming the door behind them. Gwen glanced at the girl, who was wringing her hands as though unsure what to do, and raised her eyebrows.

The redhead flashed her a lopsided smile that looked more like a wince. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she picked up an unsharpened blade from the pile, holding it out to Gwen as though in peace offering. “He’s… well. That’s Old Man Simmons.”

Gwen said the only thing she could say. “Oh.”

She took the blade mechanically and brought it against the grinding wheel, but couldn’t bring herself to turn the crank. She just stared down for a long moment, then abruptly turned back to the girl. “Is he always like that?”

The girl grimaced. “More or less. Just… just ignore him. And please, don’t tell Merlin about this.”

Gwen hadn’t been planning to, but was now curious. “Why not?”

The girl shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Gwen’s eyes. “I don’t want to worry him. Promise me you won’t, alright?”

Sceptical but not wanting to press a seemingly uncomfortable subject, Gwen found herself nodding. “Alright, I won’t say anything.”

She did, however, puzzle over it quietly – over the man and his strange words, over the girl and her strange request. Though Simmons tried to approach her again the next day, he kept being headed off by various women dashing out from their homes so quickly that if Gwen didn’t know any better she’d say they’d been watching out their windows for him. She didn’t see him the day after, and soon he was largely driven from her mind by matters more pressing than the village crazy guy. She hadn’t even mentioned him to Morgana.

Which was why when Hunith’s door opened and the two Camelot women glanced up to see Morgana’s latest visitor, Gwen was alone in her cringing.

Simmons closed the door quickly behind himself, pressing himself against the wall and glancing at the nearby window. He scuttled over to pull the shutter nearest him closed and then ducked down, half-crawling under the sill, and pushed the other shutter closed from the far corner, contorting his hand so it didn’t pass in view of the opening. Only then did he straighten, and step forwards.

Morgana by now was eying him strangely. “Can I help you with something?” she asked, in a way that questioned his sanity.

The old man knelt in front of her, holding his hands out beseechingly. “Your Ladyship,” Simmons began, surprisingly calm and coherent. Perhaps his crazed demeanor had mostly been due to the alcohol? “Loath as I am to bother you, I come to you over a matter of the greatest delicacy and gravity.”

Morgana waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be equally waiting for her permission to do so. “Yes,” she said belatedly, “what is it?”

“It’s about Merlin. It pains me to tell you, but he is not as he seems. There have been signs since his birth, but one only has to look at the most recent occurrences – this convenient appearance of this “Emrys” or “Dragoon” or whatever he’s calling himself fellow – to say for certain that Merlin is –”

The door burst open. Three women strode across the threshold, slightly out of breath. “There you are!” the tallest of them cried, grabbing Simmons by the arm and pulling him to his feet.

“Now, Simmons,” said a woman with rosy cheeks dusted by freckles. “Let’s not bother the lady. She needs sleep; we mustn’t disturb her recovery. Let’s just get you home -”

“You’re not caging me in again!” he spat, trying to yank his arm out of the woman’s firm grip. He fell to his knees again and seized Morgana’s wrist with his free hand. “Your Ladyship, don’t listen to them! They – ”

But Morgana wasn’t listening. She was staring down at her wrist, offended by the man’s sheer gall. “Let go of me.”

The man only tightened his grip. “You don’t understand –”

“ _This instant_ ,” Morgana hissed, pulling back her wrist.

“Simmons, please don’t,” pleaded the freckled woman, trying to wrestle his fingers off Morgana.

“ – they’ll do anything to keep me from showing your ladyship the light! They’re blinded by complacency! No matter how the evidence piles, they refuse to see the truth! They –!”

“Just shut up!” snapped the redhead of the group, holding Morgana steady as the tallest woman pulled and the freckled one pried fingers. Their combined efforts managed to free the peeved and bewildered Morgana from the old man’s white knuckled grip. “Nobody gives a damn what you think you’ve worked out!”

“Oh like you don’t see it too, Catrin, you goddamn lying hypocrite!” the man made a break for freedom, lunging forwards suddenly. The tall woman yanked him back by his arms and he fell to his knees, being dragged backwards as he desperately pleaded, wild eyes fixed on Morgana.  “My lady – your king! Your king would want to know!”

“Seriously,” Catrin started untying her headscarf in a surprisingly threatening manner. “I will _gag_ you if you don’t -!”

“That windstorm… Emrys my foot! Sorcerers don’t just conveniently pop up right out of the blue! Don’t you see - ! The truth is staring you in the face! Merlin –  mmmfffgh!”

Catrin’s headscarf cut off whatever else he might have said, and she joined the tall woman in dragging him out the door, kicking it viciously shut behind them like it was the true culprit of this bizarre affair. The freckled woman halted awkwardly from where she’d been making to follow, staring at the closed door like she’d been betrayed.

Morgana glanced to Gwen incredulously, as though to say: _did you see that too? What was that all about?_ Gwen grimaced back, trying to convey: _yes, that just happened, and no, I don’t get it either_. Then, as one, they turned to the remaining village woman.

She grinned uncomfortably, obviously trying for light and casual but failing miserably. Mostly, she just looked embarrassed. “I, um… I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Morgana was nonplussed. “What’s all this about ‘the truth’ and Merlin?”

“Oh, umm… yes… _that_ …” the woman said, nervously tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Simmons is usually pretty harmless, but sometimes he gets these… notions about things – you know, like that snow before Samhain means the village elder is having an affair – and, well, he’s always been pretty weird about Merlin.”

“How so?” Gwen asked frowning.

“Well, he sort of always tries to make out that anything that goes wrong is Merlin’s fault, even when it clearly isn’t. Like, there was this one time he tried to blame him for a tree that fell on his house… blame a little nine-year-old kid, can you believe it? A _skinny_ little kid with arms like twigs; as if he could have chopped it down if he wanted to!”

“So, what? He thinks Merlin… bribed Kanen into attacking, or something?” Gwen demanded, outraged that anyone could think this of Merlin, no matter how crazy they were.

“Something like that,” the woman said evasively, glancing away and edging towards the door. “He’s not dangerous, so it’s best to just ignore him. He’ll find a new conspiracy to bore us all with within a week – lucky you, getting to miss it!” she laughed nervously.

“Well, thank you for taking care of it this time,” Morgana said, her ruffled feathers resettling into her usual aristocratic poise. “I must admit, I didn’t know quite what to say.”

“It’s no problem, your ladyship.” The woman smiled shakily, closing her hand on the doorknob, backing outwards. “You just focus on getting better, we’ll keep Old Simmons out of your hair.”

The door shut behind her, and Morgana turned to Gwen, indignant. “Can you believe the nerve of that man, though? Just barging in here, grabbing me and trying to turn me against Merlin? Who does he think he is!”

“It was very rude of him,” Gwen agreed wholeheartedly. “I can’t believe he thinks such horrible things about _Merlin_ , of all people.”

“And Emrys, he said something about him, too.” Morgana scowled. “As if Arthur’s stupidity on the matter weren’t enough…”

Gwen carefully contained a grimace; and here it was, the rant she’d spent so much time and energy trying to diffuse, firing up all thanks to some old crackpot.

“I still can’t believe Arthur just drove him off without so much as a _thank you_ ,” Morgana fumed. “He helped us with Mordred! He saved my life! He saved _all_ our lives! And what does he get in return? Being told to clear off!”

Gwen nodded sympathetically. Best not to work Morgana up further.

“Just when you think Arthur’s finally starting to grow up a little, he always manages to ruin it by doing something incredibly stupid. You know, I think he only has a certain amount of intelligence granted to him per day, and once he’s used up his daily allowance he reverts back to his naturally imbecilic state! It is the only explanation for how he can go from finally seeing the sense about letting the women fight to being so closed-minded about Emrys! I mean, for heavens’ sake, the man doesn’t even live in Camelot! Who _cares_ whether he used magic to save us?”

Gwen nodded again, more sincerely this time, though still uncomfortable with the subject. “It’s not like when I almost burnt because somebody healed my father; nobody got hurt except the bandits. Sort of like Merlin said about the druid woman who rescued him.” A thought struck her then. “Do you think Emrys knows her? I mean, if Merlin knows this druid woman and she knows Emrys, then maybe that whole thing about Will’s father was just rubbish Merlin made up so he didn’t have to admit to Arthur that he consorts with druids. I mean, Simmons was at least right in that it does all seem a bit coincidental otherwise.”

Morgana furrowed her brow. “Yes, I have thought it a bit of strange that Emrys should just _happen_ to live around here. I suppose Merlin must have sent for him while we were hiding Mordred, although how he could have come so quickly I don’t know.”

“Magic,” Gwen dismissed with a shrug, before frowning as something that had been nagging at her reared to mind again. “More importantly, did Emrys look familiar to you?”

“Not really, why?”

“Well I didn’t get a good look at him, but something about his face seemed familiar… just, you know, the shape of it… and his eyes, they were almost like…”

Like another pair of bright blue eyes, ones which she had spent far too many months mooning over and had featured rather heavily in several embarrassing poems penned during that time. And just as this realisation hit her, another following in its heels.

“Hey, you don’t think …?” she glanced at the open window, and lowered her voice to the merest of whispers.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Arthur was returning from his morning patrol of the woods to when Hunith came running up to him. He was just about to greet her when she cut him off with,

"Did anyone approach you?"

"No, it was all clear," Arthur replied, taken aback by her fearful intensity.

"Oh, good," Hunith mumbled, shoulders sagging in relief. She glanced away, to a couple of village women just outside one of the huts on the village outskirts. They were dragging something large inside, but before Arthur could make out what it was Hunith place her hand on the back of his arm and started walking, gently steering him forwards with her.

Arthur tried to squint over his shoulders as they passed, but Hunith started speaking again, and basic courtesy dictated he look at her. "I've been talking to Merlin," though she spoke lightly, there was an odd quality to it – fumbling, almost, like she wasn’t quite sure of her words until they were actually voiced. "And we think Lady Morgana will be fine to ride by tomorrow."

That was quite a turnaround from Hunith's last diagnosis of  _you won't be getting on a horse any time soon, my lady, and that is that._  "Are you sure?" Arthur asked doubtfully.

"We'll have to check her over one last time, but she's healing much better than we expected," Hunith said, walking past her own house. Arthur wasn't quite sure where they were going anymore. "Thankfully the land between here and Camelot is mostly flat, so she should be fine as long as you ride slow and rest often."

Hunith stopping in her tracks, glanced over her shoulder, and doubled back to her house. She must not have realised they'd overshot it until now, Arthur reasoned. Absentmindedness must be hereditary, and Arthur had to bite back a dig; this was not Merlin, but Merlin's mother and Arthur's hostess. It would be rude to say such things to her.

She took down a basket from her shed. "I'm going to gather some berries for the trip, if you could let Lady Morgana know I'd greatly appreciate it."

Arthur took the basket, "Of course."

Hunith gave him a beaming smile then started off down the street at a walk so brisk it was more like a jog in a shoddy, jerky disguise. Smiling and shaking his head at this apparent inherited oddness, Arthur opened Hunith's door to the sound of Morgana laughing,

"Of course not!"

Guinevere looked as though she was about to protest something, but the second her eyes drifted to Arthur she clammed up. Morgana's face hardened, and she lifted her chin defiantly.

"Yes?" she said as though in challenge. "Did you come here for something, or are you planning to just stand there all day?"

"Well I  _was_  going to pass on a message from Hunith, but if you'd rather I  _could_ just go." Morgana's expression didn't clear, but she stayed silent with visible effort, so Arthur relented. She was injured and bored - he could forgive her disagreeableness this once. "Hunith says to pack your things; we're clear to head out tomorrow."

Guinevere immediately pulled out her and Morgana's packs. She plucked their clothes hanging on the line, folding and stacking them with neat efficiency. Arthur glanced about, and frowned,

"Where's Merlin?"

"He's at Will's." Guinevere said absently as she packed. "Apparently Will got back late yesterday, and Merlin wanted to go check on how his leg's healing."

"I'm sure it's fine by now," Morgana sniffed. She was staring directly at Arthur, eyebrows half-raised and head cocked slightly to the side, as was her habit for verbal attacks. "Emrys managed to  _save my life_ , a mere broken leg must be nothing to a great druid like him."

Arthur twitched, but didn't rise to the bait.  _She's injured and not herself_ , he told himself as he grit his teeth against a retort.

"And I'm sure  _Will_  thanked him," Morgana continued, her own teeth gritting at Arthur's lack of response.

"I'm going to look for Merlin," Arthur snapped, turning on heel and marching back out the door. " _Somebody's_  got to pack my bag for tomorrow."

Yet once outside he did no such thing. He headed back to the woods around Ealdor, "patrolling" again to make sure that Kanen's men and Emrys had indeed cleared off. Of course, that excu...  _justification_ , would work better if he hadn't just come back from a patrol. Perhaps he should catch some game to bring back, just to stave off uncomfortable questions?

After all, he couldn't have people thinking that he was wandering off into the woods to clear his head. That would imply that there was something clouding it, which would imply he was having doubts, which to anyone familiar with recent events would imply he was having doubts about an issue that the crown prince of Camelot _really_  should not doubt.  _Especially_ a crown prince already in another kingdom without his father's leave on a mission the king had expressly forbidden. That was already skirting dangerously close to treason right there; he didn't need any more sins to add to his list.

Which was most expressly why he'd come here to hunt without consciously realising it. Evading talk of a certain druid he was committed to forgetting was most definitely not what he came here to do. He was here to hunt. They'd need meat for the journey, after all, and so what if he hadn't brought any hunting equipment with him? That was probably Merlin's fault anyways; even in a whole different country, he managed to be useless and missing whenever Arthur needed him! Merlin knew they were leaving, therefore he should know Arthur would have to hunt for provisions. If Merlin would just bother to anticipate things like this, then Arthur would have his hunting gear with him.

(There, problem solved.)

Arthur breathed in the woody scents of dewy grass and fallen leaves just beginning to turn to mulch. Well, since he was already here and most inconveniently didn't have any hunting gear through no fault of his own, he might as well take a walk through the woods. He might be able to take down a squirrel with his knife, which could count as hunting, and was the best they'd get due to Merlin's laziness.

Luckily, he managed to snag a hare plump for winter, and nobody said anything odd about Arthur's hunting trip as they ate its jerky on the journey home. Which was good news, because he was in deep enough trouble with his father as it was, and didn't need anyone doubting his stance on magic now of all times.

Luckily Morgana was smart enough to keep her mouth shut about Emrys in front of the king, so Arthur at least didn't have to listen to lectures on how he should never, under any circumstances, ever, let a sorcerer go. He really didn't need that on top of all the other lectures, on how he had responsibilities and duties and was sworn to obey his father and king and must never pull a stunt like this again… basically, every word he'd resigned himself to suffer through from the moment he'd saddled his horse and set off after his servant.

Finally, his father seemed to be winding down. "I'm tempted to confine you to your quarters like a child, since you're so set on acting like one, but I think you've neglected your duties enough. The autumn hunt begins next week; I trust you'll have caught up on everything – and I do mean _everything_ – by then, and be ready to lead it for the first time as Crown Prince."

Arthur bowed. "Yes, Father."

He was secretly pleased; this was as much a chance for to get back in his father’s good graces as it was a punishment. Maybe if he caught something good, he could win back his father's favour.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Merlin’s homecoming was quite a bit more cheery. Unlike Uther, Gaius was ecstatic at the sight of his ward – so much so, that Merlin felt a bit guilty about his behavior prior to his departure. Is hadn’t been that bad, had it?

Gaius passed Merlin his nightly mug of tea, something he found he’d missed while away. Strange, how he’d been missing Ealdor when in Camelot and Camelot when in Ealdor.

“You didn’t need to stay and help out with the harvest after all?” Gaius tried to inquire nonchalantly.

Merlin stared into his nearly empty mug for a long minute. It was true he’d considered staying back. Will had been all for it, giving a myriad of very good reasons why a sorcerer staying in Camelot was a Bad Idea and working for its bloody ungrateful spoiled little princeling a doubly bad one. Still, whenever he’d stared considering it, he’d be drawn back to a conversation he’d had with his mother.

“I won’t tell you what to do, Merlin,” she’d said after he’d all but begged her to do just that. “Only you know Ealdor and Camelot, so only you can decide where you need to be. I’ll certainly be more than happy to welcome you home, if that’s what you want, but I’m sure the same could be said of Gaius. I will ask you, though, to consider this: I may not know exactly what may lie in store for you in Camelot, but we both know what your life would be like here. So, would you really be worse off in Camelot than Ealdor?”

And that, more than anything, had been what prompted him to return. No matter how useless and helpless he might feel in Camelot, it would only be twice as bad in Ealdor. He worried he’d fail to change anything in Camelot; he _knew_ he would in Ealdor.

Merlin placed down his mug. “Mother said they’d be fine. If you don’t mind, I’m a bit tired – I think I’ll turn in for the night.”

The next few days passed in a whirlwind of activity, as Arthur struggled through his punishments while training particularly hard for the autumn hunt. Arthur didn’t rest, so Merlin didn’t rest, and before he knew it the eve of the autumn hunt was upon him.

Though he had to get up at first light to do the final preparations of Arthur’s equipment, sleep evaded him. Merlin just stared at the ceiling, steadily becoming more and more obscured by darkness, his thoughts spinning too wildly to let him blink into sweet oblivion. It felt like he was resettling into an old routine, and he didn’t want that, he couldn’t stand it if he went back to months and months just like before he’d left.

“If anybody’s listening,” awkward and earnest, he addressed his ceiling and, beyond it, the vast night sky enveloping the whole world, “Send me a sign, please. Anything, just tell me if I’m doing the right thing here.”

He waited a minute, in the silence and the dark. The silence dragged. The dark remained dark. All was quite normal; no indication of anything that could be considered a sign.

 _Please, just this once,_ he begged silently, unable to speak the words aloud again and hear their resounding emptiness. _I’ll never ask for this again, but please, just once, give me some kind of indication that I’m where I’m meant to be._

He stared up at the dark ceiling, waiting. He wouldn’t give up hope. He could be patient… no matter how long it took…

_no matter how long…_

_…_

_patient…_

_…_

_…_

_please…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_anything…_

…

…

…

…

…

…

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK_

“Merlin, time to get up!”

Merlin groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes to block out the bright light streaming through his open window. He pulled himself upright, and looked out, blinking painfully into a bright, normal autumn day in Camelot – no, even worse. A bright normal autumn day with a giant hunting trip scheduled.

 _There is just no justice_ , Merlin internally grumbled, throwing on clothes at random.

Merlin never enjoyed hunting, even back when he’d done it in Ealdor for pure practicality. Now, when it wasn’t starvation but rather pride – which was just knight’s code for ‘bragging rights’ – on the line, he liked it even less. It wasn’t even the hunting itself he detested, or the miserable conditions he had to endure to for it, but rather how insufferable all the knights, but especially Arthur, became.

To be fair, Arthur always became twice as insufferable when placed in a group of similarly hot-blooded and arrogant young knights. But something about hunting expeditions just seemed to wring every last drop of insufferableness out of all of them, as the entire thing became one long pissing contest with every knight trying to outdo every other knight’s kills. And this hunt, with Arthur determined to get back in his father’s good graces, brought him to the height of insufferability.

“You want me to go in there?” Merlin gestured in disbelief to the shaded glen where something large was moving. “You just said you don't know what it is. It could be dangerous!”

“Let's hope so,” Arthur said, blue eyes gleaming with relish. “Now go.”

Biting back grumbles, Merlin crept into the glen. Trying to keep as quiet as possible, he drew near to the large shape in the shadows. Whatever it was, it had a snow white coat that faintly gleamed even out of the sun. Then it lifted its head, and he was breathless.  With a shape very like a horse and a single pearl horn adorning its brow, it could only be one thing:

A unicorn.

For a long moment they just stood there, taking each other in. The unicorn’s soft brown eyes spoke of a tranquil, peaceful nature. There was intelligence there, too, far more so than could be found in ordinary beasts. Bathed almost blindingly in sunlight, it was the most beautiful creature he’d ever beheld.

Then there was the sound of a branch snapping behind him, and Merlin remembered where he was.

“Go on, run!” he urged the creature. The unicorn merely tilted its head, as though puzzled by his agitation. “Run, please, they’re going to kill you!”

The unicorn’s head tilted a little more… and then there was a great twang, and a terrible, inhuman cry.

Red seeped through pure white.

Merlin stared down at the symbol of innocence and purity, slain.

Surely the worst of signs.

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Arthur’s glorious return from the autumn hunt did indeed clear his slate with the king. Having presented him with such a rare trophy, won from a creature of magic no less, it was as though Ealdor had never happened. Arthur was again his father’s pride and joy.

If only his relationship with his servant were going as smoothly.

_“Didn’t you hear Gaius?” “He who slays a unicorn is cursed,” “What harm did it ever do you?” “It just feels like a terrible omen.”_

Merlin was all about omens and curses these days. Everything had been ‘ill omen’ this and ‘bad sign’ that until he got it into his head that instead the famine and drought plaguing the kingdom were the due to the “curse of the unicorn” that Arthur had supposedly brought down on them all.

After patiently enduring several tense days of investigating the sorcery his people were suffering under while simultaneously tolerating his servant’s paranoid superstitions, Arthur snapped.

“I’m not the one who’s cursed this kingdom! If you have time to sigh and mope and mutter at me, then why don’t _you_ go find the sorcerer responsible!”

Merlin glared him, “Fine. Maybe _then_ you’ll accept that no such person exists.”

Whatever vicious satisfaction he might have felt at Merlin stomping on heel out his chambers, it didn’t really make up for the exhaustion he later faced when, after a long, hard day of organising searches for the sorcerer responsible and guarding the food supply, he came face-to-face with his own servant wandering the streets long past curfew.

“Just go home already, Merlin,” Arthur sighed. It would be embarrassing to have to lock up his own servant.

Besides, he was partly responsible for baiting Merlin into searching for the sorcerer in the first place. Something he was starting to regret, because what if through a combination of pigheadedness and dumb luck Merlin actually _succeeded_? There was no way he could hold his own against a sorcerer.

Arthur opened his mouth to order Merlin to drop the search… but just then, a shadow flitted in the direction of the food supply. _Looters_ , immediately flashed through his tired mind, and Arthur resisted the urge to groan. He was so sick of looters.

It wasn’t until the man vanished into thin air, then reappeared across the room with no movement to be seen, that another possibility struck Arthur.

“Is it you who's responsible for killing our crops, turning our water into sand?”

The sorcerer gave him an almost pitying look. “You alone are responsible for the misfortune that has befallen Camelot.”

“Me?!” Arthur demanded, outraged. “You think I'd bring drought and famine upon my own people?”

“When you killed the unicorn, you unleashed a curse. For this, Camelot will suffer greatly,” the man seemed almost sad about this.

Arthur’s skin crawled. His father had warned him of the deceptions of sorcerers, but he’d never before come face to face with someone who could look so convincingly regretful over the very people he’d cursed.

“You will lift your curse, or you will pay with your life!”

“The curse was not my doing.” His tone was mild, but his eyes were very piercing. “Only he who unleashed it can lift it.” Though the words were ambiguous enough, the look he was giving Arthur was not.

Blood boiling at the implication, Arthur reached for the sorcerer, “You're under arrest.”

His fingers closed on nothing but air; the sorcerer had vanished. Stumbling, Arthur looked around; the sorcerer was now on the stairway.

“I am Anhora, Keeper of the Unicorns. I come to you in warning, for you will be tested. Until you have proven yourself, and made amends for killing the unicorn, the curse will not be lifted. If you fail any of these tests, Camelot will be damned for all eternity.”

Arthur charged forward, but the sorcerer vanished before he’d taken three steps. And though he searched for the rest of the night, the man was not to be found.

After a sleepless night of chasing false leads and a hectic morning of reporting his failure to his father and organising search parties, Arthur was exhausted physically and emotionally. All he wanted was to curl into bed and take a power nap before his evening patrol shift. Unfortunately, though he looked just as wretched as Arthur felt, Merlin was running on strange nervous energy, eyes alight with purpose.

For not even coming face to face with the true perpetrator had convinced Merlin of Arthur’s innocence. If anything, Merlin seemed vindicated.

“You heard Anhora,” he pestered for the something-dozenth time in so many hours. Even he sounded a bit tired of this argument. “Only you can lift the curse. If you would just take the tests and prove yourself…”

“I have nothing to prove,” Arthur spat. “And I’m not taking any test set by a _sorcerer_!”

“Then you’re fine with leaving things like this?” Merlin’s eyes were bloodshot and underlined by dark bags. Yet, despite this, their blue was still strangely piercing. “Weren’t you listening to what Anhora said about Camelot being damned for all eternity?”

Arthur clenched his fists. It stung, that Merlin had so little faith in Arthur as to think he’d bring this down on his own people. How could Merlin take the word of a sorcerer over Arthur’s? “My father’s warned me of those like him! You cannot trust a word they say!”

Merlin’s face went white. Only when he spoke did Arthur realise it was from anger. “ _Those like him_? What do you mean, by _those like him_?”

“Sorcerers, of course.” Arthur couldn’t believe he had to actually spell this out. Just how sleep deprived _was_ Merlin?

“I see,” Merlin’s voice was hard as glass, and just as brittle. “Excuse me; I have duties I must attend to.”

Sensing something wrong – since when did Merlin care about what he was _supposed_ to be doing? – but too tired to question the reprieve, Arthur just flopped back on his pillows and closed his eyes. Merlin would get over it. He probably just needed sleep too; the whole argument had been stupid. He’d see that once he got some sleep and was thinking properly again. There was no way Arthur had cursed his kingdom.

There was no way.

No. Way.

Arthur didn’t end up seeing Merlin again until late that night, when they’d both individually returned to the food supply as though Anhora would be there waiting.

There, their unplanned reunion was interrupted by a looter.

 _Bloody looters_. God, Arthur was so sick of dealing with them.

This one seemed the quieter, ashamed sort – the ones who were normally law-abiding citizens, only now driven to desperate actions by desperate circumstances. He held in a sigh. He hated dealing with these perhaps more than those who shamelessly pulled knives on him and had a gang of cohorts lying in wait.  It hardly seemed right to execute the people only trying to surviving as best they could think of, however short-sighted and foolish that may be.

If he was with his men, his father, or really anyone other than Merlin and perhaps maybe Morgana, then Arthur would have had to arrest this man, foolish and desperate or not. But since he _was_ only with Merlin… well, who was going to complain if Arthur was less strict than his father would like him to be? Merlin certainly wouldn’t.

Arthur tossed the would-be looter a ration of grain as he turned to go. The man had starving children, after all. Whatever his follies, he seemed ultimately good at heart, and they, in any case, were innocent.

The man smiled as he caught it, meeting Arthur’s eyes gratefully, “You have shown yourself to be merciful and kind, my lord. This will bring its own reward.”

Beside him, Merlin went very still. As the looter’s footsteps receded into the distance, he said, his first words to Arthur since their baffling fight, “Don’t get your hopes up, but I think maybe, just maybe, you might have just passed the first test.”

“What?”

But Merlin was already running out the royal storehouse. Arthur cursed, and followed for _despite_ what certain scatterbrained servants might believe, there _was_ a little thing called a curfew in effect.

Arthur caught up to him outside the city pump. “Merlin!” he didn’t exactly _pant_ – he was in better shape than _that_ – but he couldn’t deny that he was a little winded.

Merlin, leaning over the tap of the pump, ignored him. Suddenly, he snatched up a bucket that Arthur could have sworn hadn’t been there just a minute ago, and grabbed the crank.

“What the devil do you think –”

Water gushed out.

As Arthur stared, mesmerised in disbelief, Merlin turned around, a huge grin on his face. “Well, it’s official, then.”

Explanations could wait. “Give me that.”

Arthur lifted the bucket to his parched lips and drank deeply, careful not to spill a drop. As he did so, he heard the crank at work again. Lowering his bucket, he saw Merlin filling another (though where he’d found it remained a mystery) with sweet, precious water.

The rest of the night was taken up of logistics of confirming the water supply had miraculously replenished, reporting to his father, and organising a system of who would go to the pump when so that the entire city did not cue up at once. Only once the sun had crept over the horizon and Arthur was downing his fifth mug of water did he have time to question Merlin’s words.

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Despite his good mood, Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Obviously, if he was asking, it wasn’t. Merlin resisted no such urge, and said, with the insulting patience of one explaining one plus one to a three-year-old, “Anhora said you’ll be tested, and if you prove yourself the curse will be reversed. The very next day you showed mercy and charity to a man with starving children, who then made a very cryptic remark about kindness having its own rewards.”

“You think _that_ was the test?”

“You’ve got a better explanation for why the water came back?”

Arthur let out a sigh. “Ok, so if, just _if_ , that was a ‘test’… then why haven’t the crops regrown? If this _Anhora_ ’s really true to his word, then I’ve passed his test, and thus he is morally obligated to end his curse.”

Not that that would mean anything to a sorcerer, but for the sake of argument, Arthur let that slide.

Merlin again stared at Arthur like he was thicker than a rock. “Does the concept of plurality escape you? You will be given ‘ _test s,_’ Arthur. _Test **s**_. With an _s_! And if you fail ‘ _any_ ,’ Camelot will be damned for all eternity. What made you think you could get away with just one?”

Arthur, for his part, stared back, incredulous. He knew Merlin had taken Anhora’s words too seriously, but to the extent of actually committing them to memory?

“So you think if I just pass one more test, then all our problems will be solved?” Arthur asked skeptically. It didn’t sit well with him. Why would the sorcerer curse the kingdom and then give Arthur the means to break his curse? “Even if that were true, I cannot negotiate with sorcerers. My father wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Then it’s probably best you don’t tell him.”

Arthur sighed, “You know, Merlin –” but he got no further, for there came a knock at the door. “Yes, it’s open,” he called. It wasn’t strictly speaking the politest thing to do, but Arthur had gotten about four hours of sleep in the last two days combined. He wasn’t in the mood for unasked for interruptions, and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to be polite to those interruptions.

A common palace guardsman opened it rather hesitantly. “The gatekeepers are requesting your presence, my lord.”

Arthur frowned. That was a bit unusual. “Did they say why?”

“They were wondering where they should direct the refugees, my lord.”

Arthur sat bolt upright. “Refugees?” They were barely feeding the people as it was…

“Yes, Sire,” the guardsman said, apparently blind to Arthur’s growing horror. “From the outlying villages. They say all their crops have died, and they are in need of immediate assistance.”

Arthur was already striding from the room, the slow drumbeat of sleep deprivation and panic buzzing in his skull.

From the storehouses trailed a line of stooped, ragged people ladened with large packs. The line wound up the street and spilled over into the main square, where harried merchants argued with angry would-be shoppers outside their bare stalls. A woman with the slump of defeat to her shoulders sat on the palace steps, squalling babe in arm and upside down hat at her side, calling out to strangers hurrying by without meeting her eyes. Finally, the butcher approached her, thrusting a dead crow at her. The woman burst into tears, clutching the carcass to her chest like it was a priceless treasure. Watching, Arthur’s gut twisted.

All this, for one dead unicorn?

He’d been hunting! Was he supposed to mourn every rabbit he trapped, every buck he shot, every fox he cornered? If hunting was such a terrible crime, deserving of _this_ level of retribution, then there wouldn’t be an ear of wheat left in the world.

What was so great about unicorns, anyway? It had just been a horse with a horn sticking out its head! And true, it was a creature of magic, but that was nothing in its favor.

Alright, he supposed the unicorn hadn’t exactly had a choice in regards to whether to it wanted to be a magical creature or not. Not like human sorcerers, who chose their path. The unicorn had simple been born magical. It was an animal, a simple dumb animal. It didn’t know right from wrong, and it couldn’t help that magic was entwined in its very nature. He couldn’t condemn it for the way it had been born.

Of course, by that logic he couldn’t condemn griffins and all the other magical monsters that had attacked Camelot in the past. They were born magical; they didn’t know it was bad to kill people.

But the unicorn hadn’t attacked him. It’d been in the glen with Merlin a good long while, and hadn’t so much as bitten him.

 _What harm did it do you?_ Merlin’s voice echoed accusingly through his head.

… maybe there were harmless magic creatures and dangerous ones? Sort of like how there were rabbits and wolves? Who knew, maybe unicorns were griffins’ idea of lunch.

Arthur sighed. None of this helped him. The problem was not _why_ killing the unicorn had brought about the curse, but that it had brought about a curse that supposedly only Arthur could break. Yet why, then, was he so helpless in the face of it?

Anhora was lying. He had to be.

Anhora could break the curse. Of course he could. How else would he know so much about it, unless it was him who’d cast it? And if he’d cast it, then he could _un_ cast it. Arthur would make him…

How was Arthur going to make him, when he could disappear into thin air?

Perhaps if he took these tests… no, there was no way his father would approve.

_Then it’s probably best you don’t tell him._

Arthur shut his eyes. This was madness. What was he thinking? How could he be considering this? His father aside, Anhora couldn’t be trusted. There was no way to say he was really what he claimed to be, or what his ‘tests’ would entail. Arthur would not dance to the tune of so dubious a character.

But if not Anhora, if he had already lost his mind and was considering negotiating with sorcerers, then maybe… Emrys? Assuming he didn’t carry a grudge against Arthur for sending him away. Assuming Arthur could find where he ran off to. Assuming Arthur could get to Essetir and back before the kingdom starved to death. Assuming Emrys was harmless…

 _You can’t assume any of those things,_ Arthur told himself disgustedly. Why was he so weak? So what if Emrys had saved Morgana, Ealdor, Mordred… he was losing his point. The point was that Emrys was a sorcerer, and he may not be all he appeared. And even if he was, or Arthur wanted to gamble his kingdom that he was, there remained the gaping problem that Arthur had no clue where to find him.

Morgana would have some scathing words to say to _that_.

Which left him with just Anhora as an option, which… on the two-man list of living sorcerers he knew of, Anhora ranked far above Emrys in terms of sketchiness and questionable intentions. He didn’t trust him to be telling the truth. He didn’t trust any test the man threw at him, even if the supposed first had been mind-staggeringly easy.

 And yet, did he really have a choice but to do things Anhora’s way regardless?

What else could he do but take the tests and pray to all that was good in the world that his father had been wrong about sorcerers’ intentions?

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Arthur didn’t set out for the forest with much hope, but Anhora proved much easier to find than he’d anticipated. Scarcely two minutes in and already he’d spotted the man.

It was keeping track of him that was the hard part.

Arthur cursed, rounding another tree bend and again finding the exact spot where he’d glimpsed Anhora to be empty. This was the fifth time. Was the sorcerer merely toying with him? People’s lives were at stake here – but then, a sorcerer wouldn’t care about them, after all.

Cursing again, Arthur turned in place, looking for any broken tree branches or footprints to point him in the right direction… when he noticed he was no longer alone.

“You!”

Lounging on rich blankets like a lord sat the looter from yesterday, dressed in fine leather and surrounded by hordes of food.

“You’re a thief!”

The man had the nerve to look amused. “Wasn’t that obvious when you caught me stealing?”

“Fortunately for you I have more important things to deal with.” Yet even as he continued his search for a trail, the man’s insidious taunts seeped through his concentration, slowly drowning out all other thought.

_You didn't really believe that story about my children, did you?_

_Your people starve because you let thieves steal their grain. That is why they doubt you._

_Your father would never have allowed himself to be fooled like that._

Arthur didn’t even notice he’d stopped looking for signs of Anhora.

_Your father would have had me executed, but you didn't have the stomach for it, did you, Arthur? And that's why he doubts you'll make a good king._

Arthur clenched his fists, stuffing them determinedly down at his sides. This was just a lowly, common thief… he wasn’t worth it…

_I bet he wishes he had another son, one who was worthy of taking his place._

Ringing filled his ears.

_You shame him._

His fingers were around the hilt of his sword. The sound of it being drawn was oddly piercing in the now silent forest.

“Pick up your sword,” Arthur said coldly.

Yet even when faced with the consequence of insulting the honour of the kingdom’s greatest knight, the thief had no remorse. “The King must fear the day you take the throne.”

Arthur swung at him in blind rage, but the man skipped aside, laughing. “He fears you do not have enough strength to defeat his enemies,” the man sneered, his scorn undiminished by the threat to his life. “He must wonder if you are even his son.”

The man’s hateful laugh was cut short as Arthur’s sword sliced through… thin air?

“Why did you kill him?”

Arthur whirled around. Standing behind him, wearing a disappointed, sorrowful expression, was Anhora. And suddenly, everything clicked. “This was your doing?!”

“It was a test to see what is in your heart.”

“Your tricks prove nothing! You will lift the curse, _sorcerer_!”

“It is not in my power,” Anhora said, cold and inflexible as ice.

“Then you will die!” Arthur swung his blade straight at the sorcerer’s heart… but again it passed through thin air.

Anhora reappeared to his left. “Killing me will not help you. Nothing can help you now that you have proved you would kill a man out of pride. Camelot will pay dearly.”

A stab of terror penetrated his haze of anger. “My people have done nothing!”

“Your people’s suffering is not my doing.” Anhora slowly faded from view, his voice echoing as the merest breath of a whisper,

_It is yours._

Helpless, Arthur stared about the deserted clearing. He dreaded returning to the castle. Would the water turn to sand again? Would a plague strike the city? What doom had he brought on them?

Never before had Arthur so cursed his pride.

Now, when it was too late, he knew he’d take whatever test the sorcerer set with no regret, no scorn. He’d go on any quest, would accept any insult and endure any indignity, would swear his allegiance to sorcery itself, if only he could strike the last ten minutes from existence and retake the test.

Feeling physically ill, he turned to where the great white walls of his city could be seen over the trees.

What had he done?

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

Arthur groaned. His throat burned as though he’d drunk liquid fire and his innards writhed like a nest of snakes. He brought a hand to his head, fighting the urge to be sick.

What had happened, again?

There’d been… a famine… yes, he’d remembered a famine. He’d killed a unicorn… a sorcerer had appeared and claimed Arthur had cursed the kingdom… he’d failed a test and all their stores had rotted…

Then Merlin had come to him, saying he had one last chance. He’d journeyed to the Labyrinth of Gedref, found his way through the maze, and found Anhora waiting on the other side. He’d been given a final test that culminated in a terrible choice, drink poison himself, or let Merlin drink in his stead. Well, that was an obvious one. He’d killed the unicorn, he’d cursed the kingdom, so he must drink the poison, knowing full well it’d kill him. It was his only way to atone for his mistakes.

And he had; he’d poisoned himself, going to his grave thankful that Merlin would live…

So why was he waking up?

“Hello!”

The world was too bright to his bleary eyes. It took several seconds before he could focus on Merlin’s far too cheerful face. He was sitting on the ground beside Arthur, stick in one hand and random scribbles in the sand in front of him.

“How are you feeling?”

Arthur managed some kind of grunt in response, squinting his eyes against the brightness of the sun overhead.

Merlin beamed. “So good news is, you passed the test. Camelot’s safe again. Bad news is, you look like that time Morgana poured hair oils in your wine after you said her dress made her look like a squid.”

“Wha…” The burning in his throat intensified. He couldn’t speak through the pain. Something was rising in his chest, pushing its way up his throat…

Arthur leaned over and vomited.

Merlin pulled him upright, away from the puddle of sick, careful to keep his head turned away from his body. Arthur wretched several more times, upheaving everything he’d eaten that day and probably the previous. He panted, pushing himself up, and accepting a wet handkerchief from Merlin to wipe the sweat from his brow and the traces of sick from his lips. He traded the soiled handkerchief for a waterskin, washing the worst of the acrid burn from his mouth.

Still a bit clammy, but no longer feeling like his innards might eat him, he asked again, “What happened? Why didn’t the poison work?”

“Turns out it wasn’t really poison; just a sleep potion.”

“One hell of a sleeping potion,” Arthur grumbled. His throat was still burning. He took another sip of water.

“There’s no completely safe substance that’ll knock someone out in one second flat. Anyone who says otherwise knows nothing of biology.”

That would explain why he felt so terrible, Arthur mused, taking another sip. Though, it didn’t explain why the sorcerer had bothered with a sleeping potion at all.

Anhora had had Arthur right where he wanted him. Arthur had been desperate enough to give anything to save his kingdom. He’d drunk poison, _willingly_ , hoping his death would sate the sorcerer’s lust for vengeance.

Why, then, had Anhora not used poison?

Perhaps he’d doubted Arthur would be the one to drink, and hadn’t truly wanted Merlin to die in his place. But that made no sense. What care could such a sorcerer, who’d stood by in self-righteous judgement as Arthur’s people suffered, have for the life of a serving boy?

Although, seeing as he’d passed, he supposed that must have been the point of the test; whether Arthur would trade his life for that of a servant’s. All the tests so far had had been ridiculous, true, but they’d ultimately been tests of moral character, as opposed to true quests or challenges. Perhaps Anhora suffered from delusions of moral superiority and felt he had the right to cast judgements on the characters of others?

Maybe Anhora had his own code, something like a sorcerer’s version of the Knights’ Code, and posing lethal threat to a willing challenger had been in violation of it?

Arthur felt uncomfortable at the thought. Sorcerers were wild, anarchic, dangerous people. They chose to study that which was forbidden out of deep lust for power, falling ever further as the corrupting force sank its claws in. They had no respect for laws or anyone but themselves. They were beholden to nothing, not love or honour or anything human beings should hold dear. They did what they wanted, when they wanted it, and damn what effect it had on others. Cross a sorcerer, and their vengeance would be swift and terrible.

And yet Anhora had not used poison.

Emrys he could almost understand. He’d been a druid. Though they practiced magic, druids were peaceful people. Arthur had wondered at that before, but only recently had he had cause to think of how they actually managed it. He supposed they must have some kind of safeguard in effect, something that purified the taint of magic from the body, which allowed them to retain their humanity. Or perhaps you could use a certain amount of magic per day without falling to evil, and with rest and wholesome behavior body and soul dissipated magic on its own.

In any case, the druids had some form of real society, with laws and everything. They were hardly comparable to the run-of-the-mill sorcerer.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Anhora was a druid. Some kind of unicorn obsessed, old druid hermit missing a few marbles. That would explain a lot, actually.

Satisfied now he’d found an answer, Arthur stood, swaying only a moment before finding his feet. “We should be heading back.” Something troubling occurred to him. “How long was I out?”

He’d told his father he was confirming whether the storehouses along the sea road had also rotted – they had, he’d checked on the way here – and if he wasn’t back by nightfall then Uther was liable to fear the sorcerer causing the plague had killed him.

Not that his paranoia would be entirely misplaced, considering what Arthur had volunteered for today.

“Eh, about… twenty minutes I’d say?”

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. If he’d gone and slept for three days or something equally ridiculous, there’d be hell to pay when he got back. Twenty minutes, though, was nothing. Well, combined with the massive detour and how long he’d taken to get through the labyrinth it was something, but still not a big deal. He’d make up some tale about stopping to deal with bandits and nobody would think anything of it.

“I guess everything’s over, now.” Merlin sounded almost wondering, and Arthur could relate. Though he was more inclined to believe Anhora would uphold his word now he’d worked out he was a druid, he knew he wouldn’t feel in his bones that the kingdom was safe until he’d seen it with his own eyes.

Still, though, confirming Camelot’s well-being was not the end of this mess either.

“Almost. There’s one more thing I have to do.”

# \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ # \ #\ # \ #

“I should never have ended your life. I’m sorry,” Arthur said, lowering the unicorn horn into its forest grave. Merlin just watched, awed at how far Arthur had come.

Over the last few days he’d watched Arthur blame a sorcerer for the consequences of his own actions, reluctantly accept that maybe it was his fault after all, be consumed with guilt towards those suffering under the curse he’d set loose, and willingly give his own life to make amends. Now he was repenting of his original crime, committed against a creature of magic no less. It was a startling long way to go, in such a short space of time.

Arthur arranged stones on the unicorn’s grave. Merlin felt a tingling, and caught a glimpse of white. He looked up, and all breath fled. At the very edge of the small clearing, half-hidden in the trees, stood a creature of pure white.

“Arthur,” he breathed, rising to his feet. If this wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what was.

Arthur looked up, and his jaw dropped.

The unicorn just stood there, its deep brown eyes meeting their own. Anhora’s voice rang through crisp forest air, _“When he who kills a unicorn proves himself to be pure of heart, the unicorn will live again.”_

The unicorn tossed its head, its pearl horn gleaming in the sun, and turned. Merlin and Arthur watched, wordless, as it vanished beyond the trees and into the depths of the woods. Then, mutually realising they no longer had a reason to be here, they turned to go.

“Well, that’s that,” Merlin said lamely, cringing at how completely inadequate those words were for what they’d just witnessed.

“Yeah,” Arthur said dumbly, being of no more poetic inclination than Merlin. “I suppose it is.” He was silent a moment, then said, “I’m glad, though, that I could restore it all. The crops, the water, the unicorn – everything. I’ve never heard of such a reversible mistake – if you think of it that way, the curse is the kindest I’ve ever heard of.”

Merlin looked to Arthur curiously. “Does that mean you don’t blame Anhora anymore?”

“Honestly? I’m still not convinced he didn’t cast the thing himself. But he did give me every chance to make things right, and I suppose he just wanted to save the unicorn… I guess I can’t really blame him. I think he meant well. Druids are peaceful people.”

Merlin blinked, thrown. “Druids?” he questioned. “When did he say he was a druid?”

“He didn’t, but why else would he let things go just like that? I killed his pet, or something, and he let me off with basically an apology and a strong warning. Any normal sorcerer would have zapped me to smithereens. He’s clearly a druid.”

Merlin opened his mouth… and closed it again. Arthur’s logic was way off, but from the sound of it he had a growing sympathetic spot for druid magic. Conditional acceptance was better than outright rejection, and in any case Merlin couldn’t come up with an unsuspicious way of saying, _Good sorcerers aren’t limited to just druids_.

Biting back the correction, Merlin forced himself to focus on the truly important thing in Arthur’s last words. “You think druid sorcerers are peaceful?”

Arthur looked uncomfortable. “I know it sounds crazy -”

“It’s not crazy at all!” burst out before Merlin could stop himself. Arthur stared at him and he flushed, feeling all at once like blood was both rushing to his face and draining from it. If Arthur didn’t break the silence soon, he felt like he might faint.

A light of comprehension entered Arthur’s eyes. “That’s right, I forgot,” he said softly, and Merlin could barely breathe. “A druid saved you before, right?”

It was so unexpected, it took Merlin a minute to work out what Arthur was referring to: when he’d told Arthur about Oilell, just after they’d saved Mordred.

But Arthur was on a roll apparently, for the spark of another idea flittered through his eyes. “Hang on – she used magic to do it, didn’t she!” he snapped his fingers in realisation. “ _That’s_ why you were so jittery! _That’s_ why you never talk about it!”

His throat feeling inexplicably like it had been coated in sandpaper, Merlin could only nod. A strange, bubbling sensation was building in his chest. He felt both sick and like he might float right off the ground at any moment.

“That fits,” Arthur mused. “Not just that, it confirms everything.”

Merlin forced his throat to work, though the word felt very raw. “Everything?”

“Yes, everything. I’ve worked it all out.”

He could barely breathe. “You have?”

“Yes. Magic is like poison.”

The bubbles popped. “Like - like _what_?”

“Like poison.” Arthur repeated, as though Merlin were being incredibly thick. “If you introduce magic very gradually, in small doses over a number of years and mixed in with large doses of teachings on peace and respect to all life, then the body builds immunity to it, like with poison. A safety measure that your average power-hungry madman can’t be bothered with, but that every loving druid parent passing on the tradition of sorcery to their young druid children takes great care to do properly.”

Merlin nearly smacked his hand to his head. That was the single most stupid thing he’d ever heard someone say about magic… and he’d grown up in a superstitious backwater village. He’d heard _many_ stupid things about magic.

It was also incredibly insulting. Poison?! That was the analogy Arthur came up with, _poison_?! Oh, not all sorcerers are necessarily evil, Merlin, as long as they spend years building up their immunity to the poisonous corruptive influence that is magic, they can be alright blokes, I guess.

“They have to start as young children, I guess,” Arthur said, almost musingly. “Otherwise only old druids would be immune enough to perform sorcery, which is obviously not the case. Maybe it’s easier, if they start them young. Less evil already in the heart, or something.”

Merlin’s eye twitched. Dare he contradict Arthur’s ‘epiphany’ and risk him reverting back to plain old ‘all sorcerers are evil’ again?

“I wonder if they started Mordred on it already…”

While there was commendable progress to be said on the fact that Arthur wasn’t visibly disturbed by the thought of Mordred studying magic… his idea was just so stupid, so insulting, and so completely missing the very nature of magic that Merlin couldn’t let it slide.

Arthur was still blathering nonsense. “… I suppose they’d have to… it must be a long process, or surely more sorcerers would go the safer route…”

“Maybe,” Merlin broke in, “Magic isn’t so much like poison, as water.”

“ _Water_?” Arthur echoed with a scoff. “You think _water_ could have wiped out all the crops in the kingdom?”

“Water can be incredibly destructive,” Merlin argued. “Maybe more so than fire, in that it’s harder to stop. I mean, you can sandbag and dig dikes all you like _before_ the snows melt or the rains comes, but once the actual flood hits if you’re not ready you’re screwed. In terms of sheer might, magic’s like that flood. Because of the destruction it’s capable of, people assign it characteristics like _evil_ when it’s no such thing. It’s just a force of nature.”

Arthur was outright staring at him now. Screw if he thought this was a strange or radical idea, screw if he was wondering when Merlin became such an authority on magic, screw if he got suspicious and Merlin had to flee Camelot. This was the first time since they’d met that Arthur was showing any kind of open-mindedness towards sorcerers and magic, and Merlin _would_ _not_ let him walk away with his ignorant cockamamie theory unchallenged.

“If magic is water, then think of sorcery as swimming. If you go about it right, you can have a great time. But you need to be careful, because if you’re too arrogant and reckless you can be swept away. But it’s not the water’s fault if someone drowns. Likewise, it’s not magic’s fault if human beings can be swept away in their own lust for power. And at least like swept off swimmers, there’s still hope for them to come back.”

Arthur raised a disbelieving brow. “So these, “swept off” sorcerers,” he drawled, “like the witch with the knife or the sorcerer with the beetles, or whoever caused that plague and framed Guinevere for it… you think they can be _saved_?”

“Anything’s possible,” Merlin was pretty sure he was in dangerous territory here. Maybe he should shut up now. “I mean, even if they’re sorcerers, they’re still people, right?” he defended. Surely a few more words couldn’t hurt? “And people can always change, for better or worse.”

“If you say so,” Arthur snorted, shaking his head as though Merlin had just said something as bizarre as, oh, he didn’t know, _magic is like poison_. “Water, though, Merlin? _That_ ’s the best you could come up with?”

“They’re both powerful forces of nature!” he protested. “Mighty in scope, frightening in potential, and yet benign in nature!”

“But you need water to live,” Arthur said, as though this was a contradiction against its parallels to magic. “The human body is composed of water,” as though this were not also true of magic, “And all kinds of plants and animals live in water,” again, as though this was not even more true of magic. “And water can create great scenes of natural beauty.”

_By the gods, Arthur, you don’t know anything about magic – stop talking as if you do!_

Arthur shook his head again, a bemused smile on his lips. “Really, Merlin, it’s just not that great an analogy.”

Said the guy who came up with the _build up immunity_ rubbish.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” Merlin said stiffly. He’d just have to let it go for today. Arthur had already come a long way, and asking him to go further now might be too much, too soon. It was incredible progress for him just to come to the conclusion that not all sorcerers were evil, even if he’d justified it with the stupidest, most convoluted and insulting rationale Merlin had ever not imagined, because where the hell did Arthur even come up with it anyways?

“For now,” Arthur agreed, unknowingly echoing Merlin’s thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Arthur… one deeply ingrained prejudice down, twenty-one years’ worth more to go!


	11. 1x11 - Her Father's Daughter (Part 1)

_Thirteen years ago_

Far from King Uther and his magnificent city, past rolling hills and forests and mountains and dales, lay a small castle nestled into a steep cliff. The air tasted sharply of salt, and the ever present wind bore the cries of gulls and the meeting of waves against rocks in a spray of white. The single road from the lowland to the castle gates was steep, and looking out over it one could see it stretch all the way to the small farming village on the horizon.

The small, ten-year-old lady of the castle had been watching this road for months, ever since her father had vanished down it with his men. It became something of a hobby of hers, sneaking glances out windows every chance she got, hoping for a collection of dots darkening the pale stones.

“My lady,” her nursemaid scolded for the hundredth time, as it was once more obvious her young charge’s attention was far from her lessons. When the girl still did not remove her gaze from the window, the nursemaid put her hands on her hips. “Lady Morgana!”

The little girl swivelled her head guiltily back to the front of the room and sat up straighter in her chair. She could feel her nursemaid’s eyes burning into the back of her head, daring her to just try and slack off again. In front of her, her tutor’s lips were pursed into a flat, sour line.

“Perhaps we could do this again, when the lady is feeling more inclined to attend to her studies?” the man inquired testily. “By all means, daydream all you like. We can always reschedule elocution in place of fencing.”

“I’m listening,” the ten-year-old sulked. Canceling her fencing lessons was her tutor’s favorite punishment.

He disapproved of girls fighting, and only begrudgingly taught her the ways of the sword at her father’s insistence. His lessons were a strange mix of coddling to avoid any scar which might lower her bride price someday, and a harsh regimen designed to make her to quit on her own. Morgana couldn’t wait for her father to return from war and take up the reigns of her education again. Everything was better the way he taught it.

Despite her tutor’s threat, Morgana’s best efforts couldn’t prevent the brain-numbing tediousness of elocution from sending her mind far from the stuffy room again. She found herself glancing out the window, her eyes as ever drawn to that winding stone road.

This time, she stood up. Ignoring her nursemaid and tutor’s consternation, heart beating rapidly in her chest, she dashed out the door.

By the time she’d made it to the castle entrance, the company of horsemen she’d seen through the window was drawing up to the opening gate. She hurtled through, ducking under the still raising bars, and eagerly scanned the men dismounting for the familiar face that would be striding towards her with a broad smile, arms spread in anticipation of her flying hug.

But there was no such man present.

Confused, she scanned the faces again. Her father wasn’t the only face missing; she didn’t recognise anyone. A chill stole through her: these were not her father’s men. Panicked, awful possibilities flitted through her mind – was this a ruse? an invasion? a kidnapping? – broken by the man at the head of the company stepping forward with a scroll stamped with the king’s seal. This soothed her fears – until the man read it.

Then she screamed at him.

Her father wasn’t dead – the king could take his condolences and invitations and assurances and shove them – she wasn’t going _anywhere_!

She screamed herself raw, kicking and hitting the knight when he attempted to settle her. The next eleven days were a frozen stalemate: the king’s men camping outside the barred gates to her castle yelling out their master’s words, and she making periodic trips out the gate with her training sword to whack them with all the force her ten-year-old arms could muster. No one was getting anywhere – she lacked the strength to drive off a company of knights, and the knights lacked the explicit royal permission needed to outright kidnap her.

Then their messenger returned on day twelve, the king himself in tote. The gatekeepers meekly let Uther in no matter how she shouted at them not to, and not one person stopped him from grabbing her by the arm and forcibly marching her to the carriage that he had arrived in, which had a shiny new lock outside the door.

A carriage ride with a man she’d seen exactly twice before and was now proclaiming himself family and carrying her away would have been horrible even if she hadn’t spent the whole time wrestling him in a bid to escape. Mostly it passed in an awful blur, but she distinctly remembered biting him.

To her surprise and delight they stopped no more than three hours from her home – had she worn him out, convinced him to let her alone? But such hopes were dashed when Uther took her arm in full grip and marched her up a hill that seemed quite random – until she drew near enough the top to make out the unmistakeable shape of a headstone.

“ _No!_ ” she’d screamed with all her ten-year-old eloquence, and pulled harder on her arm.

Uther had just tightened his grip. She dug her heels into the dirt, but he dragged her to the horrid stone slab with grim determination.

“He’s not coming back,” Uther said in a ragged, exhausted voice – the voice of a man who’d lost his best friend and then had to travel more than a hundred leagues to drag the man’s screaming defiant daughter to face reality. “I promised him I’d look after you if the worst should happen, and I’ll not have you make a liar out of me.”

She’d never hated anyone as much as she’d hated Uther right there and then, at a grave she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge existed, being told to leave whatever echoes of her father could still be found in their home, by a man she barely knew.

“Your father worried about what would become of you.” Uther continued, despite her hostile silence. “I know you’re angry with me, I know you don’t want to come with me, but I cannot in good conscience leave you alone. I cannot deny my best friend his last wish.”

“And what was that?” she spat at him, this man whose concern for his best friend came too late.

“For you to be safe, and loved, and happy.” The king put an arm around her shoulder. “That’s all he ever wanted, and I intend to see it through.”

Morgana trembled, too many emotions coursing through her to give them name. He’d called her father to fight for him, didn’t even send any reinforcements like he said he would, and _now_ he suddenly cared about Gorlois le Fay and his child? She carried that resentment with her all the way to Camelot, and made no secret of it.

She couldn’t say when it had faded – she could remember no vow to forgive Uther, nor any great resolve to give him and Arthur and their entire city a chance – she couldn’t remember when Camelot became _home_ and Uther and Arthur _family_. Perhaps it had come on too gradually to notice. Perhaps forgiveness had happened kindness by kindness, day by day over the years…

Or perhaps the resentful heart of that angry little ten-year-old was still buried deep within her, beating out against Uther and his failings, only needing the final nail on the coffin before it broke free.

And that final nail came one chill November night, when the king’s men brought her to the audience chambers and she learned that her maid’s father had just been arrested for treason.

 # \ # \ # \ #

“Treason?” echoed Morgana, the last vestiges of sleep knocked right out of her.

She was still in her nightgown, still shaken from the horrible nightmare of a monster with the body of a leopard and the head of a snake that Uther’s men had roused her from, and now, standing before her benefactor and king at an ungodly hour being questioned on her maid’s recent behavior and any possible sympathies towards magic, she was overcome by a sense of unreality. It felt like she had gone from nightmare to nightmare.

“Yes, Morgana, treason.” Uther reiterated impatiently, “The blacksmith was consorting with a known enemy.”

The shock was fading, indignation rising in its place. This was so like Uther: see two men together and arrest first, ask questions later – if ever.

There was something more to this story, there must be. She knew Gwen’s father, and he was a kind, gentle soul – exactly the man one would picture to have raised a girl as sweet and thoughtful as Gwen. He couldn’t have done anything so horrid as to be deserving of the label _treason_.

“What enemy?” Morgana demanded.

Arthur, standing a respectful distance from his father with his hands clasped behind his back, spoke up, “Tauren – the leader of a band of renegade sorcerers sworn to bring down the King.”

“And where is this Tauren now?” she may have been brought here still half-asleep, but she knew she hadn’t passed enough guards for the castle to be under the full lockdown it would be if they were imprisoning a rebel leader.

A look of annoyance crossed Arthur’s face. “He escaped.”

She knew it! She knew Uther was creating enemies out of smoke and shadow again!

“Well, then how can you be sure it was him?” she demanded.

“Because Arthur saw him with his own eyes.”

Morgana faltered, but quickly recovered. “Well, even if the man is who you say he is, you can't sentence Tom to death for just being seen with him!”

“We have reason to believe he was forging weapons for Tauren.”

“Rubbish!” Morgana argued hotly. “He would never do such a thing!”

“Every man has a price,” Uther said caustically. Arthur unclasped his hands, and in his right was a golden disc a hand span across and nearly two inches deep. He slid it across the table to her. Up close, she could easily see the telltale sheen of genuine gold.

“Found this on the blacksmith.”

A chill went down her spine. It certainly looked bad… but no, she _knew_ Tom. He wouldn’t do this. “So he was paid! He's a blacksmith. He could've been paid for shoeing Tauren's horse!”

Uther just raised an eyebrow. “In gold?”

All excuses failed her. Instead, she spluttered, “This is madness! You condemn a man with no proof!”

“I have enough proof.”

“Arthur!” she rounded on the thus-far mostly silent spectator to this travesty. “Have you nothing to say?!”

“Father,” Arthur began slowly, and Morgana knew right then that it would be no good. He always did this, he always hemmed and hawed and gave such weak protests to Uther that he might as well have said nothing. Arthur could never bring himself to speak out directly against his father. “The blacksmith committed a crime, but we don't know for certain he meant treason.”

“No. You're right. Nothing's certain. Save one thing: the law stands or this kingdom falls.”

Morgana tried to interject reason, “But the law must give him a fair trial.”

But by now, she should know better than to try reason against madness.

“He'll get a fair trial, and he'll be found guilty, because that's what he is.”

"You execute Gwen's father, and I will never forgive you. Never.”

She stomped out.

Needless to say, she could not get back to sleep. She didn’t even attempt it, but rather paced her chambers cursing Uther and Arthur and Tauren and even the goddamn goldsmith who made the damning metal lump in the first place. She watched the sun rise in excruciating slowness, until finally it was light enough to not send the castle doormen into a tizzy at her departure.

Morgana had been to Gwen’s home a few times over the years, bringing her flowers and fresh fruit when she was too ill to come in to work. So she was mostly confident she hadn’t got the wrong house when her knock and query of _Gwen_? went unanswered. Just to be sure, she glanced around the side and yes, there was Tom’s forge, this was definitely the right place.

Morgana sighed. Of course Gwen was out – this was clearly a day where everything that could go wrong would, and the sun had barely risen yet. The headache that had been building since she’d been woken with only three hours sleep gave a sharp throb. Wincing against the pain, Morgana knocked on the forge door.

“Gwen?”

There was no response… but what was that noise, coming from within?

Morgana pushed open the door, peering into the darkened workshop dazedly. There was no one here… but what _was_ that noise, that beating… no, _humming_ – throughout her skull? Looking around in confusion, the noise grew with every cautious step she took until it was so deafening she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. She stopped and pressed her hands to her ears. It made no difference whatsoever. The noise continued from the floor in front of her, upon which lay strewn a drawstring leather pouch. Drawn in by the insistent hum, she picked it up and shook out a fist-sized red gemstone.

Immediately the humming left her head – instead it reverberate through her hand, her arm, her bones, her very blood. Her skin thrummed with the force of it. And the stone in her hands glowed like a fire had been lit from inside.

Nearly dropping the thing in surprise, Morgana regained her senses and thrust it back in the bag, which she dropped into the depths of her pockets. Deeply rattled, she hurried to leave.

The rock felt inordinately heavy in her pockets, and not just because she was winding her way back to Uther’s castle with an object that was clearly magical. She couldn’t fathom how she went unnoticed, so loud was the hum. But the city around her went about its daily business as though hearing nothing, yawning peasants passing her by without so much as a glance.

An awful thought occurred to her: _am I the only one who can hear it?_

For the sake of making it back to her rooms undiscovered she hoped so, but for every other reason… she already had unsettlingly vivid dreams that overlapped too neatly with future events, the very last thing she needed was another smudge across the line between the rational and the occult.

But all the way from the Lower Town to her personal chambers, not one head lifted to search out the source of the hum.

Still rattled, Morgana dropped the leather pouch in an ornate box Uther had gotten her for her last birthday – one that he’d said was made to repel the evils of enchantments. She had no idea how such a thing could exist unless by some other enchantment, but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not when so much rested on no one finding such an incriminating object – not at her place, and certainly not at Gwen’s.

_Gwen_ , she felt with a twinge of guilt at having forgotten her purpose just because of glowing, buzzing rocks. She turned to go.

Before she left she locked the door – a mostly symbolic gesture due to the unlockable servant passages any determined trespasser could use, but it made her feel a bit better. Like that thing would be safe until she’d worked out what to do with it.

But when she found Gwen she was asleep in Gaius’ chambers, face tear streaked and pale. Gaius was out on his rounds, but Merlin was reading on a stool nearby. He looked up as she entered and hurriedly shoved his book under the table, rising to greet her. She had him promise to send someone for her when Gwen woke, then Morgana left, a new purpose driving her steps. She didn’t stop until she was standing outside a familiar door. After a breath’s hesitation, she knocked.

“Arthur?”

No answer. He should be drilling the new recruits at this hour, but if that had been cancelled…

Cautiously, she opened Arthur’s door a crack and looked left and right. The room was empty. Emboldened, she slipped through and quietly padded across the floor, to the hooks beside his bed where he hung his keys. Fiddling as quietly as she could, Morgana slid the dungeon key off its ring. Stuffing it in her pocket, she hurried out the room, only stopping to glance behind and make sure everything was as she had found it.

Returning to her chambers, she found a guard milling around outside her door, visibly bored. Her heart hammered in her throat, but when he saw her he snapped to attention.

“Prince Arthur’s servant sends word that your maid has woken, my lady.”

“Thank you,” Morgana replied absently, changing directions again.

When she entered Gaius’ chambers, Gwen rose to her feet, flustered.

“My lady, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be so late - ”

“It’s alright, Gwen. You’re going through a terrible ordeal. Please, take as much time off as you need. I can manage on my own for a few days.”

Gwen resettled in her seat at Gaius’ table, clutching at the mug of tea in front of her with both hands as though it was a lifeline. Morgana took the chair to her left, since Merlin was already sitting across from her. He poured Morgana her own cup of tea, with she accepted but did not sip.

“I went to your house earlier, but you weren’t in.”

“It must have been while I was visiting my father.”

“How was he?”

“As well as he could be. He said he didn’t know Tauren was a sorcerer, he thought he was just a normal customer. Tauren offered to pay him a fortune, not to make weapons, just for an experiment.”

“What kind of experiment?”

“Tauren didn't say. But when my father prepared the molten lead, Tauren used some kind of magic...”

“Alchemy,” Merlin interjected. The two women stared at him.

“I’m sorry?” Gwen asked, beating Morgana to the punch.

“It’s an obscure branch of magic with a two-fold goal: gold, and immortality. Tauren seems to have had some success on the first count, at least.”

Gwen roused, “We must tell the king…” she was halfway out of her chair, but Morgana caught her wrist, shaking her head.

“Uther will just say Tom assisted with this alchemy for the gold.”

But the spark did not leave Gwen’s eyes. “I can argue it at the trial, at least. If Uther knows the gold wasn’t a bribe, it should help. And if we can convince him that my father didn’t know who Tauren was or what he was planning…”

Morgana stayed silent, unwilling to shatter Gwen’s hopes, no matter how false. In truth Uther saw only enemies – as they spoke he was rounding up anybody who’d had any dealings with Tauren, whether to give him a bed for the night or a meal for the day. He must know on some level that not all of these people could possibly have known they’d been aiding a criminal – but that didn’t matter to Uther. Not when the criminal was a sorcerer.

In truth, Tom’s noose had been strung the moment Arthur saw him and Tauren together.

That night, standing outside Tom’s cell under the guard’s close watch, Tom asked hollowly,

“I’m a dead man, aren’t I?”

“I cannot see the future, only the present,” she took his hand in a gesture of comfort, “and one must always seize the moment.”

Tom’s face lifted as the hard metal of the key bit into his palm. Morgana smiled as she pulled away. “Good luck.”

She went to bed easy that night, taking the three spoonfuls of sleeping draught Gaius had prescribed her and fell asleep almost immediately.

_Blackness… glorious, peaceful blackness…_

_Blackness… to be able to just unwind…_

_to not think…_

_to relax…_

_Color._

_Uther, a robe thrown over his night clothes, face resolute._

_“He’s just proved his guilt.”_

_Tom, on his knees, hands outstretched and face twisted in terror..._

_“Please…”_

_Gwen in her morning shawl, running forwards, anguished,_

“ _NO!_ ”

_Herself striding into the great hall in towering fury._

_“You have blood on your hands, Uther Pendragon! Blood that will never wash off!”_

_Uther in full royal dress, the stonewall of the dungeons behind him,_

_“… and here you will remain …”_

_A rugged man in dark garb twisted Gwen’s arm behind her back, slapping a hand over her mouth to smother her scream._

_“Where is it?” he hissed in her ear, lowering his hand to a chokehold around her throat._

_Gwen was terrified. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_He shook her. “I want the stone!”_

_“Please… I don’t know anything about a -”_

_The man’s hand tightened…_

Morgana shot bolt upright, trembling hand reaching for people who weren’t there. A few rapid breaths later she realised she was still in bed; it had all been a dream.

Just a dream.

Just one of her nightmares.

It was ok.

It was all ok.

She got to her feet, pulling on a night shawl and opening her window, letting the cool night air shake the latching claws of sleep from her mind. The stars twinkled down, distant and beautiful, and in the lower town merry lights flickered in the windows as the commoners prepared for bed. Morgana breathed in the chill air, feeling the sweat on her brow cool, and let the peaceful night scenery sooth her.

It had just been a dream. Nothing to worry about.

The subconscious took stimulus from the waking world and twisted it, Gaius always said so. Her nightmares were nothing more than a result of stress. There was nothing mystic about them, they were completely, perfectly explainable.

They did not come true.

The times they seemed to were just déjà vu – a perfectly normal, natural phenomena – repainting her recollections to fit present events.

There was nothing magical about them.

She did not see the future.

That was not the future.

And yet, even with the cool night wind soothing her feverish state, she could not stop trembling. She gazed out into the moonless night helplessly, chilled by an unnameable dread.

Far off in a corner of the Darkling Woods, a brilliant white light shattered the darkness.

 # \ # \ # \ #

Merlin threw an arm up, squeezing his eyes shut against the blinding glare. A minute passed, and the searing white against his eyelids faded to a dull green. He lowered his arm and blinked away spots. His night vision utterly shot, he was only able to make out the shining runes he’d traced out in a great interlocking circle. As their glow faded to nothing, he was left in complete blackness.

“ _Leoht_.”

A small ball of light in his hand illuminated a wall of rocks in front of him, blocking off the entrance to a cave. Not much moss grew on the rocks, but there was some, and even a small flower or two. By all appearances, it looked to be the result of a cave-in that – while not brand new – was none too old either. Merlin experimentally put out a hand; it passed through the rocks as though through air. Grinning, he stuck his head in.

On the other side the cave was large enough to fit twenty people. One wall was stocked from dirt floor to stone roof with firewood. Four large barrels were lined up neatly against another wall, each with a pile of blankets deposited rather less neatly on the top. A few traps sat on a stone ledge, along with an old pair of boots, a jar of preserves, and several rusty old pots and pans. Satisfied, Merlin withdrew his head. All he could see now was the apparent cave-in.

All in all, not the most luxurious of quarters, but a decent enough place to lie low for a while. Certainly beat the executioner’s block, at any rate.

_Besides,_  he tried to think positively,  _we might not actually need it._  But his hopes weren’t high – nobody seemed optimistic about the outcome of Tom’s trial, and frankly Merlin couldn’t imagine Uther letting him off either. And that wasn’t even getting into the innkeepers and shop owners who’d been arrested after Tom.

Still, better to wait until after they’d been sentenced to rescue them, if only because whatever smidgeon of a chance any of them might have at returning to their regular lives would be destroyed completely the moment they were spirited away. There would be no convincing anyone that they weren’t in league with sorcerers after that.

Merlin glanced at the sky; judging by the position of the moon, if he returned now, he could still sneak in a few hours of sleep before Tom’s trial. He hurried home and double checked he had packed the ageing potion, antidote, and Gaius’ old robes in his sachet before passing out on the bed, exhausted.

Merlin woke, not to birdsong, nor the bustle of the courtyard, nor even the tolling of the bells, but to a great shriek of,

“ _NO!_ ”

Merlin turned over, blinking confusedly. Now he was awake, the sun shining through his open window seemed almost blinding. He blinked again, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes. The brightness only accentuated a dull headache brought on by lack of sleep. It was much too early… he turned over… another twenty minutes wouldn’t hurt…

“ _No!_ ”the cry came again, choked. It broke into a sob.  _“No – Father!_ ”

Sleep fled; Merlin knew that voice. He bolted upright and craned his neck out his window. Ice seized his chest – there was Gwen, in the lower courtyard, sobbing uncontrollably over a distinctly human shape under a white shawl, on a cart surrounded by red-cloaked guards.

Merlin had never gotten dressed so fast in his life. Yet when he reached the square the cart was gone and the guards had resumed their posts. Gwen was being led off by the baker’s daughter who, still in her nightdress, was speaking in a low, soothing voice.  She had an arm around Gwen’s shoulder and was steering her towards the bakery, and Merlin caught something about  _a nice strong mug of_  before the door shut behind them. As though this were a cue, the others who’d rushed to the square in various states of dress broke into hushed discussions.

_“Did you see? Her father was just carted away -”_

_“Tried to run for it in the night - ”_

_“- always said he was guilty -”_

_“- the things people will do for gold -”_

_“- this, Susie honey, is why you must listen when Mummy says to never take anything from strangers -”_

_“- poor Gwen, she never asked to get caught up in this -”_

Feeling ill, Merlin turned to get far away from these awful whispers, then stopped short. He turned to the guards, though not since his first day in Camelot had he felt less like speaking to one.

“Excuse me, but the others who were arrested…”

“Trial’s in an hour,” said the guard, sounding rather bored. “Execution’s at sundown.”

And it was hearing this, that there was an execution already set, that made something in Merlin snap.

Without another word he stormed off, back up the stairs, into Gaius’ chambers, and up into his room. There, he kicked open the herb sachet, snatched up the old robes and threw them over his head. He grabbed the ageing potion, now rolling around the floor, and downed it in one gulp. He pocketed the antidote and was half out the door when he stopped, turned around, and said,

“ _Oþeawan æðm_.  _Onbregdan stæf._ ”

The loose floorboard under his bed shot upward, ricocheting across the floor. Sophia Tír-Mòr’s staff flew into his outstretched hand. With another word he sent the floorboard spinning back, and heard it locking into place as he set off down the stairs.

In the main room, Gaius’ head jerked up from where he was fixing breakfast. “Merlin, what are you doing?” he said in a panic.

“Something I should have done last night,” was all Merlin said before he was out the door and striding down the halls, ignoring Gaius’ frantic calls after him.

In the halls he was met with many stares, servants eyeing his staff nervously and flattening against the wall as he passed. As he drew near the dungeons a guard passed by, stopped abruptly, double checked, and drew his sword.

“Halt! State your name and purpose!”

Without a word, Merlin threw him into the wall. He crashed down, his helmet tumbling off as he hit the floor. Somebody screamed. Merlin broke into a run.

More guards awaited him in the dungeons, each as quickly dealt with as the first. He snagged the key ring from the last one, and found his way to the cells from memory. There, white terrified faces stared back at him as he multiplied the key before their eyes and opened every cell at once. No one stepped forward.

“Anyone who doesn’t want their head chopped off at sunset, follow me.” Nobody moved. He could have heard a pin drop. And then…

“ _Emrys_?” an incredulous voice called out. Startled, Merlin turned. There, in the corner cell furthest from the light, stood the Lady Morgana, chained to the wall. So great was his surprise that he didn’t think to reply.

“Emrys?” she called again, stepping forward until the chains gave a sharp tug on her wrists. This roused Merlin.

“ _Tospringe_ ,” he commanded, and the manacles fell to the floor, chains clinking beside them. Morgana rubbed her wrists, and approached him eagerly.

“It is you, isn’t it?” she said, eyes alight, almost feverish. “What are you doing here?”

“Breaking and entering. What are  _you_  doing here?” Had Uther taken utter leave of his senses and arrested  _Morgana_  for treason? Just how paranoid was he?

Morgana’s lips twisted. “Uther didn’t take well to being called out for the blood on his hands,” she spat, eyes flashing.

Merlin almost laughed; of all the terrible things he’d been imagining, one of Uther and Morgana's regular spats wasn’t one of them. He was relieved it was such a little thing – though he had the sense not to say this to an angry Morgana.

“Excuse me, my lady,” a timid voice broke in. Merlin and Morgana both turned to see the innkeeper’s son, a gawky boy of around fourteen or fifteen whose badly spotted face was tight with tension, step forward, teetering on the threshold of his and his three little sisters’ cell. “But is this man a friend of yours?”

The other prisoners seemed to be holding their breaths.

“Yes,” said Morgana simply. “He saved my life, and that of a child very dear to me.”

This seemed to be all the boy needed, he took his youngest sister’s hand and stepped forward, his other sisters scurrying after him, clutching at his shirt and half-hiding behind him. Merlin met one of their eyes; the girl gave a small  _eep_  and buried her face in the safety of the course wool shirt.

“Urick,” hissed the innkeeper in the next cell over, shaking his head ever so slightly.

“Oh come on, Da, what have we got to lose!” the boy demanded. “If he kills us, he kills us – not like we’re not going to die anyway, just sitting here like lambs for the slaughter!”

He took a step closer to Merlin, as though goading his father, who went very white and dashed out from his cell. The innkeeper seized his son’s arm and drew him back, spinning him around to face him. He had only time to open his mouth, however, for just then bells rang out from above. There was the sound of shouts, and many heavy boots descending the dungeon stairs.

The prisoners glanced up fearfully, then surged forward, converging on Morgana. She staggered as an elderly couple latched onto her elbow, and turned to Merlin, questioningly.

“Right, well, let’s get moving then,” he said, turning back to the stairs. Moans and whispered complaints broke out behind him.

“ _But the guards – !_ ”

“ _Is he_ insane _?!?_ ”

“ _Of course he is – he’s a sorcerer, isn’t he?_ ”

Nonetheless, they followed, clutching at Morgana the whole time, as though she was some kind of shield against magic.

They met the guards at the foot of the stairs, where their forerunners lay sprawled, unconscious. The reinforcements glanced at their fallen comrades and gripped their spears tighter, lowering them to point directly at Merlin.

“You’re under arrest on charges of trespass, sorcery, assault on knights of the realm, treason –” But the guard didn’t manage to finish, on account of slamming into the wall at a speed fast enough to knock him silly. His fellows dropped where they stood a moment later, snoring.

Behind him, somebody whimpered. One of the little girls started to cry, and her father hushed her, sounding on the verge of tears himself. Not daring to look back, Merlin stepped over the guards and continued up the stairs, choosing to simply trust they would follow. As the boy had said, what other choice did they have?

“Come on, then,” he heard Morgana say in a falsely bright voice. There was a reluctant shuffling of feet in response. “That’s it,” she encouraged with a touch of relief. “Sooner we’re gone, sooner we’re safe.”

A jolt of unease shot through Merlin. She wasn’t planning on coming with them, was she? Sure the king had gaoled her, but she hadn’t exactly been charged with high treason to be executed that day. It seemed a bit much to throw away her home and all her friends over a simple argument gotten out of hand.

He didn’t have long to reflect on Morgana’s intentions, though, for at the top of the stairs they were met with more guards. Though these were quickly dealt with, as Merlin half-ran through the corridors he was met with more, one after another. He made for the servants’ entrance, and had to swerve to avoid a rain of arrows; the knight’s had set up an ambush there, blocking the door with a wall of shields over which they fired. They were clearly expecting him to sneak out somewhere that opened onto a path with low traffic.

Well, time to surprise them, then.

“Front entrance. Follow me.”

Morgana gaped, and for the others he seemed to have confirmed whatever doubts they might have had on his sanity, but more arrows whizzed past and they hurried to follow.

There was no ambush waiting in the front hall, no shields blocking the doors. Perhaps they hadn’t expected him to be audacious enough to attempt this, or perhaps they’d thought he wouldn’t be able to break through steel reinforced oak. On both counts, they were sadly mistaken.

“ _Ætýne!_ ”

The doors swung open, onto the bustle of the morning courtyard. One by one the crowd quieted, as head after head turned towards the open doors and the very wizard-y looking stranger poised on the top step with the dozen people meant to be on trial for consorting with sorcerers at his back.

Merlin’s throat felt rather dry. He gave a great cough to clear it, and began in a booming, theatric voice,

“I, Dragoon the Great, do hereby declare these people innocent of all they have been accused, and take them under my protection as victims of a cruel, ugly, fat old tyrant with the brains of a toad and the eyes of a dead fish!”

Predictably, this was met with a surge of guards from all corners of the square.

Merlin looked down at them, and then out at the fearful faces of the crowd, who had shrunk to the very edges of the square. He suddenly felt very tired. They’d already cast him in the role of evil sorcerer plotting against king and kingdom – anything he did to fight off the guards would just add fuel to that flame. They expected a show of terror, the likes of which they’d been warned of in all their horror stories and dark legends.

It was time for a new script.

Merlin raised his staff. “ _Béoþ þá hláfas, béoþ þá_ -” The guards dove forward, spears in hand, “- _dægégan_!” and Merlin was whacked in the chest with the heads of a dozen oversized fluffy yellow dandelions.

The guards looked down bug-eyed at the harmless if huge weeds, several outright dropping theirs in surprise. One older, more scarred guard reached for his scabbard, and drew… a loaf of bread. Perhaps thinking it an illusion, the guard swung this too at Merlin’s chest. It bent a bit but bounced off Merlin quite harmlessly. Merlin seized the former sword and tore off the tip, swallowing it with an exaggerated  _mmmm_  of enjoyment.

Somewhere in the crowd a single laugh broke out, cut off almost immediately with a loud cough.

Spirits rising, Merlin took advantage of the lull to mutter a few more spells under his breath. The giveaway glow in his eyes and staff seemed to snap the guards out of their dumb shock.

One aimed a bare-fisted punch at Merlin and found himself flying back down the steps, landing in a heap at the bottom. The others tried to follow his lead, and ended up much in the same way. They tried to scramble to their feet… only to discover the ground beneath them had turned into a pit of blueberry jelly. They flailed around trying to escape the sticky viscous gloop, and were not making any significant progress.

There was a definite low rumble of suppressed laughter from the crowd.

Merlin felt absurdly pleased. He was getting the hang of this.

“Come on,” he said, for what felt like the tenth time that day, beckoning the slack jawed escapees onwards. But they scarcely crossed half the square when heavy footsteps rang out behind them. A stream of knights poured out of the front gate, with Arthur at their head.

“Halt!” he barked out, “You’re under –” just then Arthur’s eyes landed on Merlin, and widened to the size of small saucers. “Em-” he cut himself off, clearly thinking better of shouting out the name of a sorcerer he had no business knowing, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “You’re under arrest,” he finished lamely.

Merlin quirked a bushy white eyebrow. “Oh am I?”

“Yes, you are,” said Arthur, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Well you’d best get on with it, then," Merlin rolled his eyes, obscuring their momentary glow, and faked a few coughs. "My rheumatism is acting up again, and I haven’t got all day.”

“Er - right,” Arthur said like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. He took a step forward… and a loud raspberry blew from beneath him.

Arthur froze, and scattered valiant attempts to hold in snickers were heard all across the square. Coloring slightly, Arthur took another step… and a wet honk sounded under his boot. Face now turning a blotchy red in some mix of embarrassment and anger, Arthur half ran down the steps, only slowing to edge along the narrow strip at the bottom of pavement that wasn’t now blueberry jelly. It was hard to say which was louder – the various rude noises made every time Arthur or his knights put down a boot, or the laughter of the crowd.

“Enough of this!” A young knight particularly red in the face drew his sword, which immediately began a shrill,

_Ninety-nine flaggons of ale on the wall!_

_Ninety-nine flaggons of ale!_

“You might want to sheath that, it’ll get quite annoying quite soon.”

_If one of those flaggons should happen to fall -_

_Ninety-eight flaggons of ale on the wall!_

_Ninety-eight flaggons of ale!_

Ignoring the swearing and new bursts of shrill singing as the other knights checked their swords, Merlin cast about the square for more ideas … and his eyes fell on a stall of exotic rugs at the fringe of the market.

It was too perfect to pass up.

“ _Inbringe cume mec_.” A large sky blue rug flew over, hovering a few feet off the ground. “ _Íece!_ ” It grew the size of a horse drawn wagon. Merlin stepped on, and turned to the escapees. “Don’t be shy now, there’s room enough for everybody.”

“You’re not serious,” the boy Urick demanded.

“Perfectly,” Merlin said with a winning smile. “Now step lively, young whippersnapper, we’d best be off before the knights grow bored of their new toys.”

With a grudging look, Urick hoisted his littlest sister up and climbed on after her, the rest of his family scrambling to join them a heartbeat later. Morgana helped up the elderly couple, then climbed on herself. As though afraid of being left behind, the others hurried to follow.

With an uneasy glance at Morgana – there was going to be hell to pay for her disappearance, he just knew it, but it was far too late to leave her behind now that half the guards had to have seen them together – Merlin raised his staff, “ _Úpáhefe_.”

The carpet rose shakily in the air – ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet – “ _ástæge_   _norðanwestan_ ” – it turned and started drifting in the direction of the Darkling Woods – “ _ástæge_   _snellice_ ” – it picked up speed. Cold wind stung Merlin’s eyes, but he did not dare shut them. He had never attempted anything remotely like this before, and he was not about to risk flipping over or crashing into a tree.

By the time he spotted the false cave-in, tears were streaming down his face. A few more spells saw them safely on wonderful, firm ground again. One demonstration of how to get in later (and a hair-raising shriek from the grocer’s wife when his arm vanished into solid rock) and they were all in the hideaway, the escaped prisoners looking around half in amazement, half in terror.

Merlin cracked a grin. “Welcome to your new home!”

# \ # \ # \ #

Gwen couldn’t remember a worse week. Not even when her mother died or she’d been sentenced to the pyre had been so awful.

It had started innocently enough, when her father had given her that dress. If only she’d taken that feeling of foreboding seriously… for where  _could_  he have gotten the money for it? If only she’d pressed the issue, made him talk to her - ! But she’d shied away from the confrontation and now he was gone, taken from her suddenly with no chance to say goodbye.

Why did he have to run? His trial had been that morning – he might have gotten off, he might have - ! But he wouldn’t have, she knew, he probably did too, that’s probably why he had run. That’s why she’d headed off to his trial after a sleepless night only to find his body being carted out the square.

Her father dying should have been enough. No person should have to deal with more in their grief. But then Morgana had gotten kidnapped.

Although, ‘kidnapped’ might not be the best word for it. She’d disappeared with Emrys, after all, along with everyone else who’d been in the dungeons at the time (and it physically hurt to think her father could have been part of that group, if only he’d stayed put another few hours), the rest of whom had been officially declared co-conspirators rather than victims. Nonetheless, after the king had gaoled four knights who’d insisted Morgana hadn’t shown any sign of resisting or even being restrained in any way ( _“he’s obviously enchanted her, how dare you slander my ward!”_ ), anybody with half a brain had taken to referring to her as ‘kidnapped’ even in the safety of their own head.

Whatever the case, Morgana was currently missing, and Gwen was worried for her, out who-knew-where in the wilderness with every knight in Camelot on the hunt. And – it felt selfish to admit it when any number of dreadful things could have happened to Morgana – but more than anything Gwen missed her company. What she wanted, what she  _needed_  right now, was to be too busy to think. But her employer was gone, so she had no work. She needed someone to talk to, but her best friend had left, and Merlin had fallen dreadfully sick with some highly contagious disease that had Gaius cordon off his chambers and ban visitors.

Due to Merlin and Morgana’s simultaneous absence she was keeping as busy as she could doing odd chores for Arthur (though both of them drew the line at helping him dress or bathe). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He’d been surprisingly comforting about her father, despite how difficult such a subject couldn’t help but be between them. And he was the one person left she could talk to about what on earth Morgana was thinking, running away with Emrys like that.

“If she’s just popped off to have a nice little chat with Mordred, I will kill her,” was Arthur’s opinion of it all. He was in a foul mood because he no longer had a working sword – or, well, he had a sword that  _worked_ , but it also sang the most irritating song Gwen could think of any time it was out of its sheath.

Actually, the knights were all in a bit of a bind, as about three dozen of their swords had either turned into loaves of bread or been bewitched to sing horribly. And Gwen was not goodhearted or forgiving enough to tell the king she knew how to work her father’s forge; it was his own damn fault he didn’t have a blacksmith.

Even if she was, though, she didn’t think she could bear to step into the smithy – she couldn’t even step into her house, not after last night.

“Tauren attacked you in your home?” Arthur repeated quietly, hand automatically drifting to where he normally kept a sword – forgetting he wasn’t wearing one, there being too few left to spare for someone off duty. “And he wants you to bring him a stone?”

Gwen nodded. It had been hard to approach Arthur with this, but who else did she have left? She’d go mad if she didn’t talk to _someone_ , no matter how afraid she was that Tauren would kill her for reporting him. He’d got into her home – what if he were here, now, listening? If he knew she’d told the prince…

Gwen shuddered. “Yes, only I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t know anything about a stone. How am I …” she cut off at hearing a hitch in her voice. She cleared her throat, trying to regain some dignity. “What I mean is, you wouldn’t have any reports on anything like that, would you?”

“No,” said Arthur, rising from his chair. “But Gaius might know something.”

Twenty minutes later saw them seated across from Gaius at his ever cluttered workbench, watching him flip through pages of a musty old tome.

“Here,” he said, turning the book so they could see an illustration of what looked like a very large gem. “The Mage Stone, wonder of the ancients. Lost for a thousand years or more. Said to give the bearer the power to alter the very essence of things. To be able to turn any metal to gold.”

Gwen’s hands trembled, not with fear, or lack of sleep, but fury. Tauren and his damn gold - the gold that had cost her her father.

Arthur looked like he was restraining himself from kicking something. In a tight voice, he asked, “And this stone? Where is it now?”

“Tauren would have had to have it with him when he met Tom. If he lost it as he fled, then I supposed he’d come back to search for it and – upon not finding it – assume someone had taken it.” Gaius’ eyes strayed to Gwen’s.

“I don’t have it,” she said shortly.

“I’m not saying you do,” he replied evenly. “But do you know who else has been to your house in the last few days?”

She thought for a minute. “There was you and Merlin, Old Mrs Thatcher dropped by to see how I was, same with Natasha from the kitchens and Beatrice from the laundry… Morgana said she came while I was out… and then there was Mr and Mrs Cobbler from down the street and Mary from next door… the guards, of course…”

Arthur rose with a purposeful look. “I’ll ask around, see if any of my men remember it.”

"Thank you," Gwen nodded, rising as well. Perhaps one of her friends had picked it up? It seemed unlikely, she couldn’t think why they would… but she might as well make a few visits, just in case.

# \ # \ # \ #

“I see something!” a pair of muddied leather boots raced over the dew-laden forest floor, the metal _srhk_ of a sword being drawn punctuating his exclamation.

“Where?” a cleaner pair of boots entered the scene, nearly tripping over a stray log in their scurry over. The boots’ owner cleared the hurdle and turned in the same direction as his colleague, his red cape catching on a twig. Then he stopped short, “You idiot, that’s just a rock!”

“I saw movement,” the first man insisted, but the muddy boots scuffed the ground, almost sheepishly.

“Of course you did,” his friend scoffed, red cape swishing as he turned away. The muddy boots trailed after him, dragging in their steps. “Way you were drinking last night, it’s a wonder that’s all you’re seeing.”

“I’m perfectly sober! Even if I have got the mother of all hang-overs …”

“Is that supposed to convince me? Here we are, working night and day to catch these criminals, literally needing every sword we’ve got… but what do you care, so long as it’s Tipsy Tuesday?”

“I stopped drinking at least four hours ago!” the man with the muddy boots protested, catching up to his colleague’s angry strides at a half-jog. “I even got in two hours of sleep, what more could you ask for!”

“What more could I ask for?” the second knight rounded on the first, who cringed back as his colleague swelled like an angry bullfrog. His muddy boots fell a half-step behind, instinctively flinching away from the tirade he’d provoked.

The raised voices could be heard long after the two pairs of boots disappeared into the trees. When she could no longer make out the bickering, Morgana released a breath and crawled out from under the rock.

She’d been checking the rabbit traps when Sir Muddy Boots almost caught her. Although it was a risky chore made riskier by the knights’ familiarity with her face, it was also one of the few useful tasks she could do, having been gently asked to leave the cooking to others from now on, and similarly requested not to attempt laundry again. She’d never realized how much she’d taken Gwen for granted until she’d had to fend for herself.

To be honest she had a feeling the only reason the others let her even do something as simple as check traps was because to walk outside the cave they had to wear boots Emrys had enchanted to leave only rabbit prints. And there was a noticeable shortage of volunteers for that.

And so it was Morgana – the most recognizable of the escapees – who’d spent the last day narrowly dodging patrols to liven up the gruel that was all they could make out of Emrys’ rations. Emrys himself had brought them more supplies in the form of fresh vegetables, which oddly consisted mostly of tomatoes and potatoes – two items impossible to get anywhere other than the Lower Town market, and even then the price was none too cheap. Emrys wouldn’t say where he lived, but Morgana was far from the only one entertaining the thought that it might be closer than one would think.

They’d been waiting on Emrys to bring them soap, actually, so when Morgana walked through the illusionary rockfall and saw the sorcerer in question, she was hardly surprised.

“Emrys,” she greeted in delight, depositing three dead rabbits on the large flat rock by the cooking pot. The grocer’s wife, who was on dinner duty that day, didn’t seem to even notice. She gripped the skinning knife so hard her knuckles were turning white, but it was Emrys her eyes were fixed on.

Emrys didn’t return her greeting though. He seemed to be doing a silent head count, and once he’d reached the leftmost person he began,

“I came to ask if any of you know anything about a stone Tauren was carrying with him.”

The others went cold at the mention of the man who’d got them all arrested. Morgana went cold for a different reason: _a stone._

The rebel leader had had a _stone_.

Perhaps a red one… one that hummed, tingled at your senses,  _called_ you…

“Why?” demanded the innkeeper frostily, drawing her out of her thoughts.

“Because he’s threatening to kill the blacksmith’s daughter if she doesn’t turn it over to him by midnight tomorrow.”

Morgana felt like she’d been punched in the gut, her dream coming back to her…

_A rugged man in dark garb twisted Gwen’s arm behind her back, slapping a hand over her mouth to smother her scream._

_“Where is it?” he hissed in her ear, lowering his hand to a chokehold around her throat._

_Gwen was terrified. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_He shook her. “I want the stone!”_

_“Please… I don’t know anything about a -”_

_The man’s hand tightened…_

“No,” Morgana whispered, and all eyes turned to her. “No, I won’t let him!”

She couldn’t fail Gwen. Not again.

“And how do you propose to stop that beast?” the grocer’s wife asked caustically. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see no stone. All I did was sell the bastard some bread and cheese, and now look at me!” A murmur of agreement went through the cave. “All because that _sorcerer_ just had to get caught plotting with the blacksmith!”

The innkeeper frowned. “We don’t know the blacksmith meant to -”

“Did Tauren pay _you_ in gold?”

“Well, no, but – ”

“I thought so!”

Morgana rounded on the woman, swelling in fury at her slanderous assumptions, but before she could lay into her Emrys interceded.

“This isn’t helping,” Emrys said firmly. “The blacksmith has already paid a far steeper price than he deserved – steeper than yours. What we need to focus on is saving who we can now – Gwen. Now, has anyone seen this rock?”

One by one they all denied it. Morgana held her silence, until Emrys turned to her.

“And you, my lady?”

The cave full of eyes, still burning with anger against Tauren and everything to do with him, turned to her.

Morgana swallowed. “Of course not.”

Mrs Mason stood up and faced Emrys, hands on her hips. “Well of course Her Ladyship didn’t – she doesn’t have anything to do with this!” a round of agreement rose from all around. “Shame on you for even asking! Now, will you stop fretting about rocks, and fret more about getting us out of this wretched cave.”

Emrys looked worn. “It’s not that easy. The king has ordered too many patrols for the rescue of the Lady Morgana. You’d never reach the border without getting caught by one.”

“Rescue me?” Morgana scoffed, her wrists burning where the manacles had been clamped. Where Uther had ordered them clamped.

_You have sentenced yourself here - and here you will remain, until you learn your lesson._

_Then release me because I've learned it already! That you care not for me, or anyone but yourself! That you're driven mad with power! That you're a tyrant!_

“ _Rescue me_?” she repeated. “He’s the one who threw me in gaol in the first place! And now I’m free he wants to _rescue me?_ ”

She was trembling with fury. “How like him,” she spat. “To _rescue_ _me_ just to lock me back up!”

A strange look came over Emrys’ face. “The guards have been ordered to prioritize your wellbeing above all else - Uther even told them if it came down to a matter of saving you or killing me, they were to save you. He swore not to stop the search until you’re brought back, safe and sound.”

Morgana didn’t know what to think. Uther cared for her enough to risk a sorcerer slipping away … but he’d thrown her in chains just for questioning him.

Mrs Cobbler interrupted. “It's great the king’ll welcome the lady back with open arms, but the same is hardly true for us.”

“Indeed. You need to lie low until Uther gives up the pursuit.”

“You just said he wouldn’t stop until the lady returns.”

Once again, every eye in the cave turned to Morgana. She swallowed.

“You’re certain Uther has no hidden intentions towards me?”

If she had her way, she’d never go back to living under that madman’s roof, at the mercy of his whim… but she was putting these people in danger by staying here, besides which…

She needed to get her hands on the stone in her chambers, before midnight tomorrow. There was something she needed to do.

“I’m certain.”

“Then take me back.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Kill the King revolves around the already-covered conundrum of whether killing Uther will really help Camelot. But my Merlin’s been there and angsted about that, so I had planned to cut it short and start Le Morte d’Arthur early, but then I was reading the transcript and remembered that Uther also arrested anyone who ‘harboured’ Tauren. I was extremely pissed at the time because I knew after three angsty chapters of questioning his decision to save Uther that Merlin wouldn’t let him kill innocent people, which meant I had to actually write a full chapter where he rescues them. 
> 
> Then I ran into the problem that Morgana was being held in the dungeons and Merlin wouldn’t just leave her chained up down there. I tried to have her stay behind but Morgana point-blank refused to obey, which meant I now had her in a random cave in the Darkling Woods when the plot required her to be in Camelot. So some of the character’s frustration with Morgana is actually my own, for making writing this that much more difficult.
> 
> And then it became a two chapter plot and it’s not until next chapter that we’ll get to the only thing that was actually in my original chapter outline. Thanks, Morgana. (I’m only being half-sarcastic – after finishing these chapters I do like how they turned out and wouldn’t cut them for the world. But I am bitter at having to rework them from scratch because of one freaking character throwing a hissy fit anytime I tried to “but the plot says you must”-ify her.)


	12. 1x12 - Her Father's Daughter (Part 2)

Arthur hadn’t led a patrol so pointless since he’d had to scour the kingdom for Mordred after breaking him out of gaol himself.

Oh, to be sure, this time he actually wanted to find his quarry. Of course he wanted to find Morgana. How else could he strangle her for running off in a snit and sending the whole kingdom into an uproar over her ‘kidnapping’? There was an actual evil sorcerer heading a violent rebellion out there, running around plotting treason and murder and threatening innocent handmaidens. But was Arthur looking for him? No, Arthur was looking for a cracked old druid harbouring shopkeepers and a lady he didn’t believe for a second had been taken against her will.

So when a dark blot appeared amid the clouds, diving lower and lower until the flying carpet was almost brushing the treetops, Arthur felt no relief to see Morgana safe and whole, nor anger at Emrys for starting this whole fiasco. The only thing he felt was annoyance at the farce he just knew they were all about to go through again.

“It is I – Dragoon the Great!” Emrys boomed in a voice that would sound menacing if he were anyone else or the situation any less absurd. “Here to taunt you with what you seek most – the Lady Morgana!”

_Dear god, was that hackneyed. Isn’t he going to go to the slightest effort to act believable?_

“Let me go, you fiend!” Morgana begged, eyes glittering with tears.

“NEEEEEEEEEEEEVER!” Emrys cried.

_That’s a no, then._

To Arthur’s disbelief, his men actually seemed to fall for the hammy acting.

“Let her go, you villain!” one of the new recruits cried, and notched an arrow.

Arthur grabbed the bow before the idiot could go through with it. “Do you _want_ her to fall and break her neck?” he hissed. Louder, he called to the other idiots also reaching for their bows, “Hold fire!”

But Arthur’s attempts to not upset the hovering piece of fabric were in vain, for just then a strong gust ripped through the forest, shaking the enchanted rug like a maid airing out the sheets.

“Noooooo! Not _wind_!” Emrys wailed. “Curses - my one weakness!”

The carpet billowed, throwing Emerys sprawled to the front and Morgana to the far right - and then off the carpet altogether.

Arthur’s heart leaped to his throat and he darted forwards, arms reaching out as though he could catch her… but the wind carried her down in a gentle, lazy drift, so that when she landed in his arms there was almost no drag to her fall.

“Alas! I am defeated!” Emrys cried, pushing himself upright on the now perfectly still carpet and peering over the edge. He shook his fist at them. “Curse you, brave knights of Camelot, rescuers of damsels in distress!”

“ _Damsels in distress,_ ” Arthur echoed, incredulous.

“I am a damsel, and I was in distress,” said a perfectly calm Morgana with a smirk. Arthur was solely tempted to dump her on the ground.

Up above the trees, Emrys was still being melodramatic. “Foiled again! I have no choice but to retreat!”

Arthur felt an eyebrow twitch. “Or you could turn us all into toads and just re-kidnap her right now,” he called up to the sky. “What’s stopping you?”

“That’s – ” Emrys faltered. “I’m a busy man; I’ve no time for that. I must be off – good day!”

And the rug zoomed up into the clouds, and out of sight.

“Shall we go after him, my lord?” the new recruit was practically bouncing with eagerness, and Arthur resisted the urge to sigh. This entire encounter had proved he desperately needed to train them some more.

“Do you have a pair of wings to follow him on?” he asked testily.

“Er, no, my lord.”

“Then how in the blazing hells do you expect to be able to catch him!” Turning to the other knights, Arthur said tersely. “Well, somebody fetch the Lady Morgana a horse. We’ve a long ride back to the city.”

# / # / # / #

The night of Morgana’s return was a long affair of an impromptu feast Uther threw to celebrate her ‘rescue’. She did not return to her chambers until long after the sun had gone down, and was met with no one to help her undress. Wondering vaguely where Gwen was, for she had not yet seen her, Morgana struggled into her nightgown herself and took the three spoonfuls of sleeping draught. This time her sleep was as peaceful as Gaius had promised, and she woke with no awful dreams seared into her mind.

“Good morning, my lady,” a sweet, if more subdued than usual, voice greeted her.

“Good morning, Gwen,” Morgana returned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and blinking against the morning light. She rose from bed and turned towards her changing screen, where Gwen was laying out her morning things. “I didn’t see you yesterday. How have you been?”

“As well as I can be,” Gwen’s back was to Morgana, as she fluffed out Morgana’s day gown. Then, out of nowhere, she blurted out in a breathless, trembling voice, “Tauren came to me two days ago.”

Morgana’s eyes widened at the admittance.

Gwen continued in that same uneven tone. “Something about a stone he left at my place. I’m to return it to him by midnight tonight or he’ll kill me, only I looked and there’s nothing like that at my house. I spent all yesterday searching, and asking friends if they’d seen anything like it. You wouldn’t have, would you?”

Morgana hesitated. It wasn’t like Gwen to be too busy to attend Morgana’s homecoming – she must be quite worried. Morgana could ease those worries, she had only to walk to her box and take out the stone. But somehow she didn’t think Gwen would agree to what she had in mind for meeting Tauren.

“Morgana?” Gwen queried, turning to face her.

“Sorry, just thinking,” Morgana made her decision. “I’m afraid I don’t recall anything like that.”

Gwen cast her face down, patting at a non-existent wrinkle in Morgana’s day gown. “Is that so.”

Guilt twisted at Morgana, and she heard herself saying, “Have you alerted the guard to Tauren’s threat? I’m sure they can catch him before he gets to you.”

Gwen nodded, still not looking up. “I told Arthur everything. He’s taken care of it for me.”

Surprise flickered through Morgana – since when were Gwen and Arthur so close? – quickly eclipsed by dismay. With the guards on alert, meeting Tauren became much riskier.

All through the day Morgana was gnawed by indecision over whether to go through with her plan or not. She could always ‘find’ the stone, and spare Gwen the worry. Then she wouldn’t have to meet with a sorcerer that night, at a time and place Arthur and his knights were expecting him. But every time she thought this, every time she started towards her box, her chafed wrists would burn. If she did this, she’d never hear Tauren out, never find out if there was any common ground they could reach where the kingdom itself would be unharmed, but not so Uther.

Because Uther had to die. He was past the point of any redemption – he’d even turned on _her_ , for nothing more than speaking against his tyranny. She could not let his oppression continue… but neither could she risk setting up another Vortigern in his place. To do so would be to spit in the face of all her parents had fought for. She’d have to feel Tauren out, and if he seemed to be the sort to set himself up as the next sorcerer king she’d simply not follow up on her offer of inside help. But if he seemed decent enough, if he wasn’t a power-hungry madman… this could be the perfect chance to enact vengeance on Uther, once and for all.

Arthur would be a better king than him, anyways. Fairer and more merciful, if a bit less decisive and rather less experienced … but surely he would grow into that, soon enough?

She could worry about Arthur as king when Arthur was king. First, she had to kill Uther.

Driven by such thoughts, she dismissed Gwen after dinner, claiming a headache and desire to retire early. She waited until the sun was dipping below the horizon, before crawling out from under her covers still dressed. She silently fetched her darkest night cloak, and hid a dagger in its sleeve (just in case worst came to worst). Then she pulled on her sturdiest boots, and checked herself once more to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Satisfied, she turned to her small ornamental box, and reached inside. Only soft velvet met her fingers.

The stone was gone.

“Are you looking for something, my lady?”

Morgana whirled around. Gwen stood in the servant’s entrance with her hands properly clasped behind her back. It was too dark to make out her expression. As though conscious of this, Gwen struck a flint and lit the torch on the bracket nearest her, bathing the long passage behind her in flickering orange. Something in her other hand glinted in the light.

Gwen took a step forward, holding up that hand. “If it’s the stone, I’ve got it right here.”

Morgana stared at the gleaming stone, her thoughts rather like a mine cart that had sped along its tracks into a gaping hole. She felt oddly betrayed. “What about Tauren?”

“Arthur will take care of him,” Gwen said, with none of the distress she’d shown that morning.

Anger at the deception rose within her. “So that at least was true, then?”

Gwen’s eyes flashed. “Everything I said was true – which is more than can be said for you!” Before Morgana could bite back against this accusation, Gwen continued heatedly, “Tauren _did_ come to me, and I _did_ tell Arthur, and I _did_ spend all yesterday searching and asking friends if they’d seen anything. Of course _you’d_ skipped off with people who’d _actually_ broken out of gaol because of _actual_ fear of execution, so I couldn’t exactly ask _you!_ Even when you came back you were so busy reassuring all your equals over the worries _you’d_ caused them that I knew I’d be getting no private audience anytime soon. So I thought I’d just have a quick look around as I readied your chambers for your arrival – not that I actually expected to _find_ anything, because surely you would have said something to me if you had! Imagine my surprise when I’m just absently polishing and I notice that that box you hate and never use has fingerprints on it! Imagine my hurt and confusion what I find a _glowing pulsating rock_ inside! And then imagine, if you so please my lady, my feelings when I give you the perfect opportunity to come clean and explain the next morning, and instead you lie to my face!”

Gwen’s chest was heaving, she seemed breathless and perhaps a little taken aback at her own tirade. But that was nothing to Morgana’s shock; twelve years she’d known Gwen, and she’d scarcely heard a cross word from her in all that time. She’d never imagined Gwen capable of such vehemence.

“It wasn’t like that,” Morgana said, indignant at the injustice of Gwen’s assumptions. “I just didn’t want a repeat of the last time the guards found a magical object in your house.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me you’d found it?”

Morgana paused. She actually hadn’t. It had simply not occurred to her to. Puzzled, she groped for a reason why that was. She lit upon one that fueled her righteous anger. “I was trying to protect you!”

“Morgana, I am a grown woman. I do not need protection from the contents of my own house. I have spent the last two days confused and afraid, and you could have prevented all that if you’d just talked to me like an equal.”

“I do talk you like an equal!”

“Do you? Then why did you say nothing say when you found it? Why did you lie to me when I told you Tauren’s threat? Why did you dismiss me early tonight because of a headache and then try to sneak out near dark, dressed to travel through woodland, with the rock you took from my house? Is that how things would transpire between equals?”

Morgana was silent. Thinking back on it from Gwen’s perspective, her actions were certainly puzzling, and she struggled to think of a defense. She’d just wanted to protect Gwen… but that didn’t really preclude talking to her, did it?

Why, then, hadn’t it occurred to her to?

“You’ve been treating me like a child to be kept in the dark, or like some kind of adorable little pet to be coddled. I’m neither of those; I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are!”

“Then talk to me like a friend: why did you lie to me?”

So Gwen wanted honesty, did she? She was a big girl and could handle the truth, could she? Well, then, let’s see her do so.

“Because maybe Tauren isn’t so wrong after all!”

Gwen’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Haven’t you thought about it? Tauren wants Uther dead, and I wouldn’t blame you if you felt the same.”

“If Uther died I'd feel nothing. He means nothing to me.”

“But if you met with Tauren, and he gave you a chance for revenge…”

“Tauren,” Gwen said in a low, dangerous voice, “all but killed my father. He used him for his experiment, then abandoned him to the guards. I want _nothing_ to do with him.”

“But Uther actually _did_ kill your father,” Morgana cried, frustrated. “Don’t you want revenge on _him_!”

“I don’t want revenge on either of them!” Gwen snapped. “What would that accomplish? I’d be a murderer, and for what? Their deaths won’t bring my father back. I’d have dragged myself down to their level, and for nothing.”

“So you’re just going to forgive Uther, after all he did to you?” Morgana couldn’t understand it. Her own hatred of Uther was so smoldering that when he’d embraced her upon her return she thought she’d choke on it. How could Gwen be so unaffected?

“I don’t need to forgive him – I told you, he means nothing to me. He’s just a sad little man too suspicious to see the goodness in people. He’s too pathetic to hate, and he’ll always bring himself more misery than anyone else could. The one who hates him, the one who can’t forgive him, is you.”

“Of course I hate him! He killed your father, and threw me in the dungeons for confronting him over it! How can I forgive that!”

An odd expression crossed Gwen’s face. “So which can’t you forgive?”

“Pardon?”

“Which can’t you forgive – what he did to my father, or what he did to you?”

Morgana opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew that the former offence was by far the greater sin, and yet… and yet if she were entirely honest…

“I can’t see that the two are separable,” she justified.

“So then you were contemplating treason before Uther gaoled you?”

Morgana couldn’t answer. She’d been furious when Tom died; she’d wanted to hurt Uther, and stormed into his council chambers with full intention to give him a tongue lashing to flay even his hardened heart… but it had been in the cold dank cell of the dungeons that the fevered desire to see him dead had festered.

After a long moment, Gwen spoke again.

“I think the reason you hate him is because he means something to you. He’s the closest thing to a father you’ve known these last thirteen years, and then he went and threw you in the dungeons anyway, as if that didn’t matter to him the way it does to you. I think that’s really what you can’t forgive him for – but is it worth _killing_ him over?”

All her former reasons for why Uther must die came to mind… but they seemed paler now, weaker. They’d lost the weight a righteous cause had given them. To kill Uther because he had murdered an innocent man was justice. To do the same because he’d thrown her in the dungeons was petty and vindictive.

“He’s a tyrant,” Morgana argued, but even to her own ears it sounded like an excuse. “He’s killed so many people. He deserves it. And Arthur would be a much better king.”

“My father was not the first to die at his word,” Gwen allowed. “I came near enough to it myself. But as far as I recall, you haven’t been harbouring these thoughts since the plague. There are reasons you haven’t tried to kill him before now, and they’re just as true now you’re angry with him as they were before. As for Arthur…”

Gwen took a deep breath. “Arthur’s been amazing these last few days. He’s stood by me in everything, making sure I escape blame by association and ready to listen when I need someone to listen and keep quiet when I just need someone to be there. He’s out there risking his life to arrest Tauren, right now, to keep me, a servant, safe. I’m sure he will be a much better king than Uther. But are you seriously suggesting helping a rebel gang leader murder his father and then force a kingdom threatened by emboldened rebels upon him in his grief, assuming they don’t just destroy it too! How could you do that to him!”

“I wouldn’t let it come to that,” Morgana denied. “I don’t want Camelot destroyed, I just want Uther -”

“Losing your father,” Gwen interrupted, choked voice now threatening more than shouting, “is a pain that cannot be captured in words. Surely you remember.”

Morgana swallowed. She did.

“You cannot make Arthur feel this as well.” It was neither question nor demand, but rather an iron-hard fact.

There was no way Morgana could look Gwen in the eye and say otherwise. Not when Gwen looked so close to tears as it was.

“I’m sorry,” Morgana said, because dead fathers was the absolute last thing she’d wanted to bring up around Gwen, and she was ashamed of causing more distress to a friend going through a terrible time.

Gwen deflated, the righteous anger that had squared her shoulders fading. She clasped her hands and look down, again small and delicate, the sweet maid Morgana knew rather than the strange creature confronting her with steel composure that would be envied among queens.

“I am too,” Gwen said in nearly a whisper, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. Then she looked down at the stone in her hand and frowned as though seeing it for the first time. “Now, what do we do with this?”

# / # / # / #

They spent the night discussing it. Morgana still wanted more than anything to grab the stone and run straight to Tauren but, even if she hadn’t decided to honor Gwen’s wishes, whatever chance she had of finding the criminal before Arthur had long since been lost.

So Morgana didn’t mention her true desire, instead contenting herself with tossing around options to hide this coveted magical object where no one could find it. The vaults of Camelot were considered at length, and eventually discarded. It was the first place anyone who knew where Tauren had lost the stone would look, and Morgana remembered far too many break-ins to the ‘impenetrable’ vaults for comfort.

In the end they sacrificed greater security for greater obscurity, reasoning that lesser defenses were actually greater protection if nobody thought to try to get through them. And so the next morning Morgana grit her teeth and approached Uther for permission to visit her childhood home of Tintagel with her maid, ostensibly to recuperate from the terrible ordeal of being kidnapped by a sorcerer.

She just hadn’t expected him to insist on coming along.

All the way to her father’s grave, which they were to visit first at the king’s request, the anger simmering under her best blank face only grew. Her father had been dead so long now that she rarely thought about him, but she hadn’t forgotten him, nor the pain of losing him… nor the last visit she’d made to this grave.

Kneeling at her father’s grave with Uther at her side and wrists still raw from the shackles, old grudges stirred beneath thirteen years’ worth of trappings.

But apparently Uther’s recollections were going down a slightly different lane.

“Your father was the greatest man I've ever known,” he said quietly, and placed a hand on her shoulders.

Morgana tensed, but more than discomfort, she felt confused. Although her father and Uther had been best friends, Uther almost never spoke of Gorlois. Their friendship had been in youth, in years of mutual exile and the reclamation of Camelot. They’d grown up and apart long before she’d come along.

She knew of their friendship from stories, but had never seen it in person.

So why did Uther have this sudden need to see her father’s grave, to talk about the best friend he never spoke of?

“He stood for everything this kingdom represents,” Uther continued. “Truth, justice, valour. A hundred times he saved my life on the battlefield. His courage and his honour were without equal.”

Then Morgana watched as the king knelt before her father’s grave… as he lowered himself, into the very dirt, and bowed his head. “When Gorlois died, I lost the truest friend I ever had. For he was as fearless in questioning my judgment as he was in defending my kingdom. That's the mark of a true friend.”

Morgana swallowed. She didn’t want to hear this anymore than she had wanted to hear Uther’s last speech at this grave. She didn’t want to hear of a friendship she had never witnessed, of the loyal knight her father had been to his king.

Loyal enough to _die_ for his king.

“I know how he respected you, my lord,” she made herself say, trying to push down the bitter mess that had had years to simmer and rot in the deepest parts of her heart. It wasn’t working. “But I don't share these memories. I only know I loved him, and he was taken from me.”

The wind howled through the silence that followed. If she listened carefully, she could hear on it the cries of gulls and the meeting of waves upon rocks in a spray of white. The air had the faintest taste of salt.

All things that used to mark _home_ , yet came upon her now as foreign, half-remembered sensations.

Likewise, her father had faded to memory. What shade of brown had his eyes been? Had he had laugh lines around his eyes, or dimples in his cheeks? Which arm had that one long scar been on, again?

The answers eluded her, and would continue to do so. With every passing year, his face became harder to recall, however she fought to do so.

“When he died, and I took you into my care, you fought me from the beginning. Your will is as strong as my own. You challenge me as a friend must. As your father did in his time.”

Morgana had not known this, having only ever seen her father and king together twice. Though this explained where she got it from, it was little comfort.

If Uther valued friends who challenged him, then why punish them? Why ignore their advice - why blow up at them when called out his atrocities – why –

“Why clap me in irons, then,” she bit out.

Uther looked weary, and his eyes flickered to her wrists with something that … no, she must just be projecting that. There was no way it was…“I know I'm not an easy man. My temper blinds me sometimes. There are things that I regret –”

“Like Gwen's father?” Morgana couldn’t stop herself from biting out.

“Yes.” Morgana looked at Uther. Of all his surprises today, this was the greatest.

He looked back at her, and for the first time she noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the haggard cast to his face. Uther took a deep breath, and, as though the words were being wretched from somewhere deep and painful within, said,

“I should have listened to you.”

_Impossible._

Uther never admitted to being wrong. Even with Valiant, even when he so obviously had been and it had nearly cost him his son, he’d never admitted to a mistake.

And yet, raw on Uther’s face now was nothing but guilt and remorse… perhaps even a bit of shame.

Morgana sat dumbstruck as Uther pour out more of the heart she’d accused him of not having,

“You've been a blessing to me, Morgana. You are the daughter I never had. Your counsel is invaluable, as is your friendship and your love. Without you, I cannot hope to be the king this land deserves. When that sorcerer took you from me, and I feared I’d never see you again… that my last words to you would be of anger and cruelty…”

Uther closed his eyes, as though in unspeakable pain, and shivered. Actually shivered, despite the midday heat.

“Please forgive me, Morgana,” he whispered, the sound almost lost to the wind.

Something twisted in Morgana’s gut. Forgive him? How could she? After all he’d done – did he really think a single apology could wipe it all away - !

But looking at the bent, wretched man kneeling before her father’s grave, honoring a best friend he’d lost perhaps even before the man’s death, at the side of her, the unexpected daughter he’d never really known how to deal with, begging for forgiveness for mistakes made in fear and anger…

She couldn’t stay angry. She couldn’t forgive him, but she couldn’t hold onto that burning, all-consuming anger that would see him in a grave like this one.

“My lord,” she started, and had no idea how to continue.

But something in her voice must have changed, because Uther looked up at her in hope. He peered into her face for a moment, and then reached out and drew her into a hug.

This time, she didn’t feel disgusted by it.

# \ # \ # \ #

It was near midnight before Uther went to bed. Morgana knew, because she’d assigned Gwen the task of preparing the guest room of Tintagel for him, and Gwen only came to her quarters then to say she’d been dismissed.

They waited together a half hour or so, just to be safe, then lit a lantern and tiptoed down the stairs from Morgana’s old bedroom, all the way down to Tintagel’s vaults.

It took a long time of trying out various keys before Gwen found the right one. They crept through the door, which despite their most careful efforts they could not stop from creaking, and to the great chest in the middle that held Morgana’s dowry. Taking the tiny personal key that Morgana usually kept locked in a trick bottom to her third favorite jewelry box, Morgana opened the chest.

Gwen withdrew a tiny pouch from her pocket. Through the coarse linen, a pulsating glow could be seen. She dropped the plain pouch atop all the jewels and velvets and silks that would be Morgana’s when she married, and they hastily closed the lid.

Now that it was all over and hidden, it seemed a little anti-climactic. After that long journey, Morgana had almost expected it be a little more difficult to see their task through.

“Well, now there’s one more reason to hope Uther never tries to engage me and Arthur,” she tried to joke, but it came out a little forced. “Imagine what he’d make of my dowry.”

Gwen tried to laugh, but it also sounded forced. Morgana didn’t blame her; it was a fairly lame joke. Gwen only kept it up for a moment, before asking, as though she couldn’t help herself, “Is that likely?”

“Hm?” Morgana questioned, a bit lost.

“You and Arthur… you know, together,” Gwen clarified uncomfortably.

Morgana blinked. What a strange thing to focus on. “Well, no, if that was Uther’s plan he’d have tried to set us up by now. Besides, he wants Arthur to marry some foreign princess to strengthen Camelot’s alliances. Princess Elena of Gawant is the current favorite, I believe.”

“Oh,” Gwen said in a small, dispirited voice.

Morgana wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. For years now, Gwen had been the number one supporter of the supposed lovely couple she and Arthur made, anytime they couldn’t be bothered to find partners for a feast and just went together. Morgana had always suspected though that it wasn’t so much that Gwen thought she and Arthur would be good together, as it was that she liked the sound of “Queen Morgana”. Was she disappointed that some foreign princess would take what she thought of as Morgana’s rightful place?

It was a puzzle that followed Morgana to bed, into the realm of the heavy sleep of Gaius’ draught, where little crowns reigned from the sky above the castle courtyard while Gwen caught them with a lasso and dressed Morgana in them one after another, Arthur laughing in the background.

 _No_ , Morgana was saying, _this one doesn’t match my shoes. Try that silver-and-sapphire one over there_ , and Gwen was obediently leaping towards said crown with her lasso…

But then Gwen vanished.

As did the rain of crowns…

And Arthur…

And the courtyard…

She was alone…

_She was alone, bodiless and incorporeal, there but not, in the middle of the woods. A beast came – an awful, horrible beast with the head of a snake and the body of a leapord – snarling, rearing towards it’s target with great claws –_

_It’s target turned –_

_And it was –_

“ARTHUR!” she screamed, and bolted up in bed.

“My lady?” came a confused call from the serving girl’s room next to hers, as Morgana struggled against her tangled sheets. Gwen emerged from the dividing screen still half-dressed and with hair that had been braided for sleeping but clearly hadn’t been slept on – apparently Morgana hadn’t been out for very long. “My lady, is something wrong?”

Morgana, meanwhile, had freed herself from the sheets and was halfway out the door, heart hammering in her ears. “Gwen, get my horse! We must be off at once!”

“Morgana?” Gwen questioned, more confused than before. “What happened?”

“There’s no time – we need to warn Arthur! He’s been attacked, or he _will_ be and – _oh my god_ – we’ll never get there in time - !”

“What’s all this commotion?” came a drowsy call from down the hall, as footsteps rang out the stone corridor separating her room from the guest room.

Gwen looked from Morgana to the door, wide-eyed and alarmed. “It’s nothing, my lord!” she called too quickly, her unnatural high-pitch contradicting her. “Lady Morgana just had a nightmare, is all!”

Morgana’s door opened, and Uther stepped in bleary eyed and blinking even against the dim lighting of the candle Morgana always kept in her bedchambers. He squinted at her. “Morgana, is this true?”

Morgana felt like she was drowning. She couldn’t do this, not with Uther here, she couldn’t tell them – couldn’t let on that her dreams were anything more than dreams –

_The strange woman stood above Arthur, smiling, as he sank deeper and deeper into the water…_

_“… I pulled him out of a lake after Sophia nearly drowned him."_

_A rugged man in dark garb twisted Gwen’s arm behind her back, slapping a hand over her mouth to smother her scream._

_“… he’s threatening to kill the blacksmith’s daughter...”_

Morgana swallowed. Could she afford _not_ to do this, when there was every chance this dream would soon bear an uncanny resemblance to events to unfold?

 _Sometimes you need to do what you think is right, and damn the consequences,_ her own words came back to her, mocking in how easy they had been to say to Arthur, and how hard to follow through on herself.

She took a deep breath, but her voice came out tight, breathy. Like it was struggling to draw air through the noose she was hanging around her own neck. “Arthur’s in danger. We need to go back. At once.”

“You know this?” Uther frowned. “How?”

“How doesn’t matter. I know it.”

Uther looked her up and down, taking in her nightdress, her tousled hair, the cold sweat on her face. His expression softened, and he said almost gently, “It was a dream, Morgana.”

Her heart plummeted. She couldn’t breathe – she couldn’t do this – but she had to, she had to convince him, or Arthur would – would - “It wasn’t a dream,” she managed to get past her constricted throat. A fuzzy, buzzing feeling in her head was making it hard to think.

“Take your potion and go back to sleep,” Uther said kindly, “We’ll talk to Gaius when we get back, see if he can get you something a bit str-”

“It’s not Gaius,” she said, through the ringing in her head. “It’s me.”

Uther frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Morgana shook her head. She couldn’t say it to him – she could barely think it to _herself_ …

“We can’t wait until morning,” she said, because that was all that mattered. All Uther need know. “Arthur needs us, _now_. We may still be able to save him. I’m going, with or without you.”

Morgana strode from the room without waiting for a response, a silent Gwen trailing in her wake. She wasted no time on gathering her few travelling possessions – they could always be sent to her later – but rather went straight for the horses. Gwen saddled them while she dressed in a spare stall.

When she emerged, there were three horses waiting by the gate. Uther, already mounted, looked at her.

He didn’t believe her, she could tell. He thought it was all in her head, that she was being hysterical over nothing. But he saw that it upset her, that _she_ believed it, and for that he was willing to forsake a night of sleep and undertake a hard ride in the dark. Just to ease her mind.

A warmth Morgana hadn’t felt in a long, long time suffused her.

Uther waited for her as Gwen helped her up, and then turned his mount. “Let’s be off, then.”

# \ # \ # \ #

The weather was fair and the road recently maintained, so they made good progress that day. But still Morgana seemed restless, nudging her poor horse on as far ahead as she dared, practically quivering with impatience each time Uther called for a stop to rest their mounts. She chafed at each delay, refusing food as though in ignoring her own basic bodily needs she could convince Uther to willfully neglect all of theirs.

As the sun sank below the horizon, he checked his mount outside a tiny town by the river.

“We’ll stop here for the night.”

There was a fine art of moderating one’s tone so that something was neither an order, which could be rebelled against, or a recommendation, which could be disagreed with, but rather a simple announcement of fact – fact that just so happened to coincide with one’s own wishes. Fortunately, it was an art Uther had always had talent in, talent he’d refined over his years as king.

Which was probably the only reason his ward, who showed every sign of inclination to ride through the night, reluctantly checked her horse and dismounted. She handed the reigns to her maid, and followed a grudging half-step behind Uther as he made his way to the dingy, likely flea-ridden shack that was all this town provided for accommodations. But they hadn’t packed any camping gear, so they had little choice but to chance the inn. Hopefully, it wouldn’t result in days of dousing himself with oil and vinegar.

The bed thankfully passed his brief inspection, and Uther slept as soundly as he could in any foreign bed – old warrior’s instincts did not react well to unfamiliar surroundings in a vulnerable state. Nevertheless, as he was paying for lodgings in the morning, he wasn’t so drowsy as to miss the conversation of the people taking breakfast in the common room.

“- not sure I want to risk it. What with this beast out and about,” a grizzly, old voice was saying.

“Beast?” a lighter, younger voice asked.

“A terrible beast was spotted just outside the Lower Town. It’s said to have the head of a snake and the body of a leopard, and to make a horrible noise from deep in its belly – a barking like thirty couple hounds questing. Twelve people are already dead because of it – I don’t fancy joining them, no matter how good a penny the weekend market there can fetch.”

“No worries now,” a third, heavy voice spoke up, to the audible surprise of the first two. There was the scrapping of a chair being moved. “Didn’t you hear about the prince?”

Uther didn’t outwardly react – to do so would disrupt the conversation he was now very intent on.

“No? What happened?”

“He slayed the beast, but at great cost; he was pierced by its poisonous fangs.”

Uther couldn’t hear anything further; a low ringing in his head drowned out all other sound. He turned on heel, heedless of the innkeeper’s cry behind him that he’d forgotten his change, and strode dazedly out into the bright morning sun. Morgana and her maid, waiting outside with the horses, were listening to a grim-faced old peasant woman.

“… the kings’ healer can do nothing for him. Even now he hovers at death’s door.” Morgana was so white she looked in danger of fainting. The old peasant put a wizened hand on her shoulder. “We can only hold vigil, and pray.”

“Thank you for telling us,” the maid said quietly, gripping the reigns tightly. The old peasant bowed to Morgana, and took a step back.

As Uther drew near, Morgana looked up. There was something stricken and recriminating in her face stark with fear. Her very eyes seemed to accuse him for delaying even a night, for his lack of faith in her unexplained fears.

“We ride hard,” Uther announced. “If you are hungry or need to relieve yourself, do so now; we won’t stop until sundown, at the market of Geldred Ridge – there, we’ll change horses. Then, we ride through the night.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it was, the only thing that went according to plan in these two chapters: the Gwen – Morgana confrontation (and subsequent road trip). Because Morgana's friendship with Gwen is way more patronising than the fandom gives it credit for, and there's no better place to call her out on it than when she's deciding what to do about Gwen's father's death without even stopping to think that maybe Gwen should have a say in the matter.
> 
> Also, we're near the end of the season and Gwen and Morgana needed their time to shine.
> 
> The little skit to drop Morgana off with the knights was written and directed by Morgana herself. For *some* reason, she found it rather easy think up stupid villain motives for stupid plans that don't really accomplish anything and actually set you back from your goals. Nice to see her channeling her inner actress for good.
> 
> Next time, the season finale!


	13. 1x13 - The Lady and the Lake

“ _Gestepe hole!”_

The candle-light cast eerie shadows on Arthur’s still, near lifeless face. The only sign of life still to be had in it was the sweat glistening upon his brow despite the chill winter air – despite the cold, clammy feel of his skin as Merlin checked his pulse.

“Still irregular,” he announced uselessly to a grim, unsurprised Gaius, and flipped to the next page in his book.

“Merlin…” Gaius said gently – or as gently as he could when sorrow and pity had weighed down his every expression since Merlin dragged Arthur’s limp body back through the gate.

Merlin grit his teeth and read out, “ _Licsar ge staðol nu!_ ”

The low burning in his eyes, the powerful rush through his veins, the swelling of his heart – it was all _right_. The spell was powerful, and his performance flawless. But still Arthur didn’t stir.

“Merlin,” Gaius put a warm, gentle hand on his shoulder. “The bite of the Questing Beast is a death sentence that no magic can overturn.”

It was hard to read the next spell, when his eyes were aching with a different burn than that of magic – a burn that made the words swim on the page.

“ _Ahlúttre þá séocnes!”_ he tried, to the same success as his previous attempts to save his friend – that is to say, none.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

Merlin slammed his book shut.

“There has to be something!”

Since meeting Arthur, Merlin had saved him more times than he could count – even in horribly public acts in front of the whole court. No matter how dangerous it was, Merlin managed to save Arthur each time.

How could it be this time – _this time_ , with the king as far away as it was possible to be without leaving his borders entirely – _this time_ , when Merlin could use magic to his heart’s content without fear of discovery or interruption – that he failed?

 _Damn you, Arthur,_ Merlin thought furiously, hands over his eyes to try and quell the burning against his closed eyelids. _What did you have to ride out for, anyways? Why couldn’t you just listen, for once in your life!_

But Arthur wouldn’t be Arthur if he listened – if he’d sat content at home while a beast terrorized his people, even for the time it took a messenger to travel to and from Tintagel, informing his father of the strange beast Gaius claimed killed in one bite ravishing the countryside, and asking for advice on how to proceed.

And so it was that Merlin had found himself chasing after Arthur, after trying and failing to get him to heed Gaius’ warnings. The chill in his heart when they were separated. The thrill of victory as he killed the monster… snatched away by the sight of a prone figure in the shadows of the thing’s lair…

He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly as he croaked a simple,

 _“Þurhhæle._ ”

_Heal._

But he wasn’t expecting anything – and indeed, there was no sign of healing on the dying prince.

“If it were that easy,” Gaius sighed, “the Questing Beast would not have earned its place in legend.”

Merlin rose from the chair by Arthur’s sickbed, his beloved, illegal book clutched to his chest. Precious and irreplaceable as it was to him, it was only a general grimoire – containing all kinds of spells for every common or not so common occasion, every one vetted by respected sorcerers of its day, even the most complex tested and proven to work a hundred times over. Nothing experimental – nothing impossible – nothing miraculous.

Nothing that would triumph over a legend.

“I need another book,” Merlin mumbled as though he were the one fevered.

 Gaius gave him a worn, pitying look, but said, “On the top right shelf on the balcony is a silver-embossed sheepskin volume titled _the Many Miracles of the Mother Goddess_ – it’s where I learned of the Questing Beast, years ago. If there’s anything that can help you, that’s where it’ll be.”

Merlin nodded, “Thank you,” he said quietly, and slipped out the room.

 _The Many Miracles of the Mother Goddess_ was exactly where Gaius had said. Unlike most of Gaius’ library, it wasn’t so much a trove of research and study as it was a collection of myths. Everything in it was fantastical and unproven and impossible – _miracles_ , in other words. Unfortunately, the book delighted more in waxing poetry about the Goddess’ unfathomable power than it did offering any kind of insight into how any of these ‘miracles’ might work, much less any of instructions on how to overcome one.

After reading the blurb on the Questing Beast thrice and gaining no more insight than how _awesome_ and _wise_ the Goddess was for creating such an instrument of fate, Merlin flipped back to the start. He was determined to read every last purported miracle – the Questing Beast had been real and deadly enough. Now he just had to find a miracle that was actually _helpful_ …

 _The Lake of Avalon_ , one page said.

Merlin frowned. As in, the lake Sophia had nearly drowned Arthur in? Was there more to that place than its murderous inhabitants and being supposedly impossible to find? His interest caught, Merlin read:

_The Lake of Avalon, also known as the Lake of Eternal Bliss, is one of the Goddess’ most marvelous mysteries. No mortal may lay eyes on it except in the moments preceding death. The souls of the deceased pass through on their journey to rebirth, lingering to heal of their pains in life. For the waters of the Lake are purest in all the Earth, and gleam with the Goddess’ sanctification. To bathe in them is to be cleansed of the impurities of this world, and to drink them is to be healed of even mortal wounds. Legend tells of a pure soul, that of a young witch whose body rests in the Lake, lingering for hundreds of years. This legendary figure, the Lady of the Lake, is said to grant healing to any mortal able to find her shores. For the Lady, blessed with the Mother Goddess’ favour, is her proxy in this realm, and the Lake, blessed with the Mother Goddess’ goodness and power, the cure for all ills._

Merlin closed the book with more hope than he’d felt for two days, and ran for his cloak and ageing potion. Bereft of any true leadership, the guards were in such disarray that he could probably spirit Arthur out the castle pretty easily, potion or no potion. But he preferred to play it safe and work his magic in a face untraceable to him, even with Uther on the other side of the kingdom.

# \ # \ # \ #

Uther charged through the Lower Town, the crowds scrambling out of the way of his stallion. It was drenched in sweat and foaming at the mouth as it earned every penny Uther had paid the dealer for it. He hadn’t been able to find quite as fast breeds for Morgana and her maid, so he’d gone on ahead. He would not be kept from his son.

Uther jumped off outside the royal stables, shouting demands for news to his guards as servants scrambled to tend his shaking horse. He flew up the steps without pause, his guards having to hurry after him to explain the events of the last few days.

Uther didn’t slow until he reached Arthur’s chambers, where he found Gaius tending to Arthur, pale and lifeless.

“Will he be alright?” Uther demanded, pushing past a chambermaid in the entranceway so fast he nearly tripped over her broom. Recovering, he strode towards his longtime friend and physician.

Gaius started at his voice, whirling around. He gaped at Uther a moment, as though trying to reconcile his impossibly speedy arrival, but mercifully accepted it without question. He looked at his patient, posture dropping, and back to Uther. Uther’s heart sank.

“Sire,” the physician said in a far too quiet, sympathetic voice – the voice he’d had when Ygraine –

Uther banished the thought. “Do what you must.”

“Sire, the bite of the Questing Beast has no cure.”

“There must be something you can do – some way to save him.”

“I’m afraid –”

But whatever Gaius was afraid of, Uther never heard. The door flew open, banging into the wall and narrowly missing the startled chambermaid. An old man with long white hair and quite an impressive beard strode in, an intricate staff topped with a blue crystal banging the stone tiles.

“Gai-” the old man reeled back, eyes locked on Uther.

Uther stared back, equally shaken. That robe – that staff – that long white hair and beard… Uther had never seen him in person, but he knew the descriptions of his own bounties.

“Dragoon!” he hissed, drawing his sword. “How dare you come here! This is your doing!”

The sorcerer snapped out of his gobsmacked stupor. “You’ll find it’s not, but that’s immaterial,” he had the audacity to deny. “Simply, I’m here for your son.”

Gaius placed his head in his hands and gave a soft moan. Uther swelled, advancing on the sorcerer, sword raised.

“You’ll never leave here alive.”

“Oh for crying out loud,” the old sorcerer grumbled, and muttered some devilish nonsense. Uther’s sword jerked upwards and whacked him across the head so hard he fell to his knees, head spinning.

“ _Befealde hine þære scétan! Āhebbe!_ ” an ancient, terrible voice cried. Uther fought to stand.

Arthur now hovered three feet above his bed, wrapped like a mummy in a cocoon of sheets and blankets. Uther froze, gritting his teeth. To take out Dragoon before he could take out his hostage would be difficult, but if he struck fast enough –

The chambermaid’s broom was ripped from her hands and into Dragoon’s. Dragoon mounted the broom like it was a horse and set the cocooned Arthur across his lap. Then, he leaped out the window. Heart jumping to his throat, Uther darted to see his son splayed across the pavement with the mad sorcerer, but instead he saw an old robed figure huddled over a broom, flying off towards the sun.

Uther turned to the guards who’d come rushing at the uproar in the prince’s chambers. “Set every knight in the realm on his trail. I want that sorcerer found, and my son recovered.”

Turning to Gaius, he said, “How long would you say Arthur has?”

“Another week, perhaps, assuming proper treatment and nothing worsening his condition.”

Proper treatment was unlikely in a sorcerer’s hands. “And otherwise?”

“A day… perhaps less.”

# / # / #

Merlin’s stomach rolled as he zigzagged through the sky, dodging the unrelenting hail of arrows from behind. He glanced over his shoulder at his pursuers, their sweat glistened faces narrowed in loathing as they urged their mounts on across the open plain surrounding the city, knocking back arrows every moment they could. Fortunately, Uther favored training his men on swords rather than crossbows, and having to aim from a galloping horse was doing them no favors. If he kept moving, he should be fine.

He sped over the seemingly endless plain, fixed on the woods ahead that would slow his pursuers. He just had to make it to the treeline, and he’d lose them –

Pain exploded in his left shoulder.

Merlin doubled over with a cry, gritting his teeth. He didn’t have to glance back to know he’d been hit.

The flying broomstick stuttered to a halt, lurching down a dozen sickening feet before Merlin righted it. The arrows were far too close now, but it was hard to think clear enough to control the broom – he didn’t know how much longer he could avoid them – his shoulder throbbed, he was losing too much blood – how was he ever going to –

Merlin abruptly realized he was being an idiot.

_Am I or am I not a wizard?_

So used was he to having to ignore the ostentatious solution in favour of a subtle one, that he was even ignoring it after throwing subtlety to the wind.

“ _Beþene_ _ûs_ _innan bordrand fram ligbære blæst!_ ” Merlin cried, and white-blue light twisted around him and Arthur in a web. Arrows crashed into the large, stationary target one after another. They fell to the ground as ash. Somebody threw a spear. This too was incinerated upon impact.

Merlin, meanwhile, gritted his teeth and pulled out the arrow, dropping it to crumble into his shield. He clasped a hand over the blood gushing from the open wound even as he murmured words to knit his skin back together. Within seconds the throbbing pain vanished, but he still felt dizzy, lightheaded – weak. He’d stopped the bleeding, but he couldn’t return the blood he’d already lost. He considered a blood replenishing spell and immediately discarded the notion. In this state, he’d probably overdo it and explode his heart or something.

The knights on the ground were yelling something, either emboldened by his halt or fearful at his web of light. It was hard to make out through the ringing in his ears. Whatever they were saying, it was giving him a headache.

“ _Swefaþ nu!_ ” he commanded, and they all fell down asleep, even the horses. Merlin rubbed his head.

“Should have done that from the beginning,” he muttered, seriously annoyed at himself. He’d lost precious time and blood by acting on instinct – and instinct excluded any attack too flashy.

He was turning the broom back to the forest and the Lake of Avalon hidden therein, when motion on the battlements caught his eyes. Merlin squinted – it was difficult to be sure from this far away, but those looked almost like …

Catapults.

Merlin watched, incredulous, as a line of no less than twenty catapults assembled. Uther certainly didn’t do things in half measures, Merlin thought faintly. Just what was he planning? He couldn’t launch anything that size at Merlin, not with Arthur in tow.

A ball of orange glowed from the buckets, one after another. They were going to shoot flaming missiles at him? That seemed like an even worse idea…

A horn blew from the castle, and the row of catapults launched their burdens. Merlin tensed at the volley, hurrying through powerful defensive spells… but the flaming missiles sailed far over him, into the forest ahead. The spell died on Merlin’s lips, as he looked on in confusion. Surely they couldn’t have all missed? And by such a margin … no, he realized, they hadn’t been aiming for him at all.

A chill went down his spine – what, then, had they been aiming for? He peered into the forest, a twisting he couldn’t explain in his gut, and saw it:

Black smoke rising above the trees.

Swearing, Merlin urged the broom on, ignoring the new volley of fire launched into the deadened, leafless, _highly_ _flammable_ forest. Ahead of him flickers of orange leapt among all the dried brown, gaining on it by the second. The fallen carpet of dead leaves was already ablaze – perfect kindling for the larger flames eating their way up the bare trees.

Acrid smoke choked him; Merlin coughed out a wind spell around him and Arthur. It worked a little, he could at least breathe again, but the air burned his throat. Screams rang out below – animals, he told himself desperately, trying to forget all the bandits, the travelers, the huntsmen, the druids he’d happened across in these woods. The tortured cries chilled him to the bone – all the more as, one by one, they died out.

Merlin had gravely underestimated the lengths Uther would go to get a sorcerer making off with his son.

He couldn’t hear anything above the merciless crackling below him – was anything still alive there? Merlin’s hands shook, reddening from the heat even as he rose to the clouds. He stared down at the raging inferno, black corpses of trees twisting the red. It looked like a painting of hell itself.

Something deep within him, past all flesh, past even thought, something down to his soul and its very essence, shook. In that moment, it was not nature but he himself that burned.

No words on his lips, no spell in his head, Merlin reached to the sky. The clouds swelled around him, dark and thundering. Fury surged, and drowned the devastated earth.

Long white hair plastered to his skull as Merlin slowly came back to himself. _I’m wet_ , he thought dumbly, his fingers sliding on the broom. He glanced up at the now dark clouds, and had to shut his eyes against a sheet of water. Unaccountably shaken, he flew low, through the skeletal trees, retracing the path he’d taken once before to save Arthur’s life.

# / # / #

The castle ramparts buzzed with the fearful murmurs of the guards, overlaying the furtive whispering of the townspeople below. At least, Gaius thought, there were no more screams, as there had been when fire flew overhead and crashed into the countryside. Indeed, in sharp contrast to the terror the sudden rainstorm had struck in the guards who’d started the fire, the townspeople who’d run about shouting as smoke rose over the city walls now sounded quite relieved at the sudden, inexplicable deluge.

One man, though, was silent. On the highest rampart, at the side of his old friend and physician, the king stood transfixed in horror.

“Good god,” Uther finally breathed. The dark clouds were rolling close, the flagstones pattered by wet dots. Uther raised a hand, face a bloodless grey it usually took a sighting of Nimueh to induce.

“Sire,” Gaius called gently, worried about his king and longtime friend. Uther didn’t seem to hear, staring at the water steadily pooling in his palm.

“Who is this man,” he whispered, face tightening as raindrops struck it, settling in a hard mask as the scattered drops spread into a near indistinguishable sheet.

Perhaps he was thinking back to a time, many years ago, when he would accompany the Court Sorceress to the ceremonial calling of the spring rains. Nimueh would journey to a place of power and take up one of the sacred artifacts of the Old Religion. She’d pray to her gods to bless the land with an abundant growing season, and then there would be a light drizzle. The people would applaud and the clouds would disperse, the conjured rain over almost as it began. That had been the extent of Nimueh’s power.

Merlin’s clouds gave a boom of thunder, the guards ducking behind their posts with a cry.

“Sire,” Gaius called again, more urgently. “We need to get to lower ground.”

Uther couldn’t seem to peel his eyes off the dark sky, lightning illuminating his ashen face. Clearly Uther had not forgotten what Nimueh was capable of … and what she wasn’t.

He turned to Gaius. “Why have I not heard of this Dragoon?” he demanded in a low, intense voice. “How could we have missed him in the Purge?”

 _By not combing through cradles_ , Gaius did not say. Ironically Uther _had_ arrested Merlin in what could be considered the tail end of the Purge. Of course he rather doubted Uther would make the connection to a four-year-old, and Gaius was not the least inclined to draw it for him.

“Through all my years and all my dealings, I’ve not heard a single rumor of a sorcerer by the name of Dragoon the Great,” Gaius said honestly enough. The name hadn’t come up until Merlin had decided he needed an alias for his alias. “In all likelihood, he’s not from this kingdom.”

It was even true; Merlin _wasn’t_ from Camelot.

“And yet here is he now.” Uther’s eyes hardened, and Gaius’ heart sank. There was a glint in those eyes all too similar to the one that had preceded the order to burn Nimueh all those years ago. “Come for revenge. First Morgana, now Arthur… he seeks to take everything I love from me.”

“Things may not be as they seem,” Gaius cautioned, bitter futility on his tongue. Uther certainly hadn’t heeded his warnings last he’d had those eyes. “Precisely _because_ we do not know this man it would do well to keep an open mind on who he is and what he wants, and how we should respond to him.”

“How to respond to him is obvious – no matter how many storms he devils up, I’ll light more fires until he burns.” Uther signaled a guard. “Double – no, _triple_ the bounty. I want this man found! Have every able bodied man combing the woods, and send notices across the kingdom – everyone with any knowledge of Dragoon the Great is to come forward, for a portion of the reward. Any who harbor him will be judged equally guilty, and sentenced to burn alongside him!”

“Yes, sire,” the guard said, hurrying away to follow orders. Uther turned back to Gaius, who made sure to meet his eyes with his most inscrutable face.

He’d known since receiving Hunith’s letter the risks of taking her son in. He’d known, and still decided to care for the boy like his own. Even if Uther discovered Gaius’ technical treason, as long as Merlin got away, as long as Gaius burned _for_ him but not _alongside_ him, he would have no regrets.

Chilled by more than the pouring rain, Gaius quietly suggested they move inside. Uther nodded, striding through a door the guard opened for him. Gaius followed, giving one last backward glance at the blackened sky that had swallowed his ward.

Merlin had passed beyond his sight. Gaius could not even watch over him from afar this time. He closed his eyes, and prayed ‘Dragoon’ would come home safe.

# / # / #

At long last, Merlin could make out the gleam of a lake through the trees.

Merlin dismounted the broom, letting it fall to the ground with a clatter. Arthur sagged in his arms, the bottom of his blanketed cocoon dropping to the muddy grass. Merlin staggered under the sudden weight. Carefully lowering Arthur and himself to the ground, he readjusted his grip and put a hand to Arthur’s forehead, biting his lip and having to lean close to make out his friend’s short, ragged breaths.

Arthur’s fever had worsened considerably. _Apparently_ inhaling a bunch of smoke and flying through a torrential downpour mid-winter weren’t good for him – _thanks, Uther_ , Merlin thought bitterly. Gaius had estimated Arthur could hold up another week. Merlin had a bad feeling their escape had eaten up a disproportionate amount of that time.

He carefully spelled Arthur warm and cursed this rain. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d created it, and his attempts to will it away were having exactly zero effect. He cast one last warming charm and pulled Arthur’s blankets tighter, heaving him to the lakeshore.

“That was quite a show back there,” a familiar and distinctly unwelcome voice said from behind.

Merlin looked over his shoulder, too exhausted to even turn to face her properly, and said in a flat, fed up voice, “Nimueh.”

Nimueh frowned, as though this was not the reception she’d been looking for. Merlin couldn’t bring himself to care. He was wet, he was burned, he’d lost a good amount of blood, and now he was face to face with the woman who’d poisoned him. Whatever fear or awe he should have for this priestess of the Old Religion wasn’t there, just this needling impatience to get rid of her and get this over with already.

Because of course getting shot and a _forest fire_ couldn’t be the worst of his day – he just _had_ to go up against a murderous witch as well.

“Well, was there something you wanted from me?” he asked, making no effort to hide his impatience.

She smiled widely; it was not a nice expression. “On the contrary, I believe _you’re_ the one wanting something from _me_ ,” her voice was all honey, dangerously sweet. “You _are_ seeking the Lady of the Lake, are you not?”

Merlin’s stomach plunged. No, she was lying, she had to be. The Lady of the Lake was the ghost of a young witch whose body resided therein – Nimueh was clearly not a ghost, and her body clearly not in the waters of the lake.

“You expect me to believe that’s you?” Merlin asked scornfully, but unable to keep a tendril of fear from his voice. According to all the legend said it couldn’t be her, and yet he had a horrible feeling…

Nimueh’s smile widened. “Ask anyone,” she purred. “The Lady of the Lake is Nimueh, High Priestess of the Triple Goddess. Has been for the past three hundred years.”

Despite the confidence in her claim Merlin refused to believe it, not the least because she was claiming to be three hundred. Although she _had_ lived through the Purge, when by all appearance she didn’t look much older than Merlin…

No, Merlin wouldn’t believe it. “The legends say the Lady of the Lake is a spirit,” he refuted.

“That’s how it used to be,” Nimueh shrugged carelessly. “Kill a young priestess on Samhain, when the next world draws near to our own, and send her body by burning boat to Avalon. Of course, the problem with this was that no one living could contact the Lady –”

“- _that’s_ the problem?”

“- so it was very difficult to get her help. The ancients performed many experiments, and discovered that it didn’t have to be the Lady’s whole body that resided in the Lake for her to harness its power. So the sacred ritual was modified, and by the time I was chosen there’d been a living Lady for two hundred years.”

“Only one for two hundred years?” Merlin repeated, a puzzle slotting together in his mind as he looked on this far too young woman.

Nimueh’s smile turned rather smug. “A living Lady resists the wears of Time, the Lake sustaining her body. I am as young as I was twenty years ago when Uther betrayed me, and as young then as three hundred years ago when I became one with the Lake. As young as my predecessor, who met her end with youth and beauty intact.”

Her smile sharpened. “That’s the power of the Lake,” she said. “It can heal anything, even the wears of Time. I felt its extraordinary power for myself twenty years ago, when through great treachery I feared my magic had been ripped from me forever. But by the Lake’s power, as you can see, I am as powerful again as a High Priestess ought to be.”

“If the Lake’s power is so great, and then how did the last Lady die?”

“Killed herself,” Nimueh said in contempt. “She was so weak, always going on and on about how it _hurt_ , watching everybody leave her, how _lonely_ she was, alone undying among her friends. Mind you, it took her about a ten tries to work out how to do it. Had to blow herself up all at once before the Lake’s power was insufficient to restore her body. That’s what you get when you choose a Lady based on _kindness_ and _compassion_ rather than power – luckily, the priestesses learned that lesson before my selection took place.”

Which answered why anyone would choose someone like Nimueh as their last hope for salvation. Although, maybe she hadn’t been so bad three hundred years ago. Merlin couldn’t imagine living that long – outliving all his friends no matter how many times he made more. Perhaps that’s why she was so cold and callous; she had no one left who meant anything to her, and even the natural fear of one’s own death had left as her as her time stretched on without an end to be seen.

Merlin shivered, and banished thought of such a bleak existence from his mind. He had to focus on what was important here.

“So you can heal Arthur?” he asked, barely daring to believe it would be that easy.

“I can,” she confirmed easily, and said no more, smiling into the silence as she waited for him to make the next move. For him to beg for what she did not offer freely.

And he would, for Arthur he would – _if_ he thought it would save him.

“Why should I trust you?” he demanded. “Last time we met you tried to kill me!”

“That was before I realised your importance,” she said breezily, as though attempted murder were a small matter that could be set aside as water under the bridge. “Interesting name you’re going by these days, _Emrys_ – tell me, do you know what it means?”

Everything he’d wondered, every mystery and secret he’d never been given all the pieces to, was contained in her smile, just waiting for him to ask.

Unfortunately he didn’t trust a word off her forked tongue. “You tried to kill Arthur,” he held his friend tight as though she were about to fling him to the mercy of giant spiders again.

Nimueh just shrugged. “Arthur was never destined to die at my hand, and now it seems I will be his salvation.”

“Uh-huh,” Merlin said, conveying just how much he believed her change of heart. “And what do you get out of it?”

“I only wish to see a good and just king on the throne,” Nimueh spread her arms innocently. “One who will restore magic to the land and lead us out of hiding, into a better life,” she gestured as though to illuminate this bright shining land of tomorrow.

“How noble of you,” Merlin snorted. “And just what are you going to do about the man already occupying the throne, and how do you intend to make Arthur welcome magic once he’s there?”

Nimueh gave him a smile like one would to an adorably naïve child. “Why don’t you leave the _what_ s and the _how_ s to me,” she said patronizingly. “All you need to know is that I’m willing and able to heal your precious prince. You only need let me approach him.”

Merlin tightened his grip on Arthur. “And if I refuse?”

“Come now,” her smile turned predatory. “We’re too useful to each other to be enemies. All I want to do is dip him in the lake and wash his hurts away – is that really so terrible?”

Merlin’s grip on Arthur was now painfully tight. He didn’t fail to notice she’d dodged his question.

“Or would you rather let him die?” she asked, still smiling. “That little jaunt of yours ate up what little life he has left. If you dither much longer, he’ll be beyond even my power to bring back.”

Merlin looked wretchedly at Arthur. He looked so small, a deathly white face lost among white blankets. It took a heart-stopping moment to confirm he was still breathing, however weakly. Merlin swallowed; the Lady of the Lake had been his only hope after two days of searching for a miracle cure. Arthur didn’t have another two days for him to find another, if any even existed.

Trying not to feel like he was making a grave mistake, he took a step forward. Nimueh’s eyes shone with victory.

“One wrong move and I’ll end you,” he warned. Nimueh just gave a light hum of acknowledgement, eyes dancing and smile smug as he followed her into her lake.

“Lay him in the water,” she instructed, and Merlin obliged, wading in deep enough to set Arthur down. He stuck to him like a burr. If Nimueh struck, he’d be ready for her.

Yet Nimueh merely knelt beside them in the water, hands to the sky as she implored the Triple Goddess in the Old Tongue to have mercy on this poor wretched soul, to heal him and wash away all afflictions of his body, spirit, and mind. Ancient power flowed from the lake to Arthur. His face gained color, his breathing evened. Merlin held his breath as Arthur’s eyes fluttered open, barely daring to believe it.

“Arthur?” he called, hope painful in his chest. Arthur’s eyes flickered to him, awake and focused and _alive_ , and Merlin couldn’t help it, he laughed in relief. “Come on, let’s get you up,” he babbled, helping Arthur out of the blankets restricting his attempts to get up. “This water’s freezing, let’s get back to–”

Merlin cut himself off, remembering all at once that he was an old man right now, that Arthur would think him Emrys, and he really didn’t want to imply that Emrys lived in Camelot. He bit his lip and glanced at Arthur to see if he’d noticed his mistake… but Arthur was curiously blank looking. He was just standing knee deep in lake water, with a man he knew to be a sorcerer and a witch who’d tried to kill him, staring in Merlin’s vague direction with no particular interest.

Merlin waved a hand in front of Arthur’s face. His eyes followed it, but he didn’t swat it away or better yet try to reach for his sword and demand what Emrys and the witch from the Caves of Balor were doing here and why they were standing around in the middle of a lake.

“Arthur?” Merlin called again, more insistent.

“Yes, my lord?” Arthur replied sedately, and that was just all wrong on so many levels.

Merlin whirled on Nimueh. “What did you do to him!”

# / # / #

Arthur looked on his lady in confusion. He didn’t understand why his lord was upset with her.

Tears glistened in her lovely eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” she trembled, delicate and precious as a mayflower. Arthur took a step closer, to comfort her.

His lord pulled him back, turning on Arthur with narrowed eyes. “Bark like a dog,” he commanded tersely. Arthur obediently yipped, howled, and woofed until his lord told him to shut up. His lord turned back to his lady, eyes blazing. “Well?”

“So he’s a little more malleable than before,” she sniffed. It pained Arthur to see her in such distress, but there was another feeling stirring in his chest… one he didn’t know how to describe.

What did his lady mean by _before_? There was no _before_ , there was only the lake.

His lady wept into her hands. Arthur’s heart broke on seeing her, who’d been there since he opened his eyes, in such distress. “I only washed away his hurts – the afflictions of his body, spirit, and mind.”

“You can’t just wash away his personality!” his lord thundered. His lady shied away, weeping piteously.

“All I’ve done is give him a clean slate,” she choked between sobs. “All his fears and prejudices – gone! Just think of the possibilities. We’re all he has,” she looked up from her hands, tears caught in her eyelashes as she smiled beautifully at Arthur. “So let’s all create a bright shining future, together, with you as our king.”

“Yes, my lady,” Arthur nodded, eager to please her. He would craft the glorious future she envisioned, for her.

His lord snarled. “ _I_ will make Arthur king, but you will never see that day! _Ástríce!_ ”

Arthur cried as light shot at his lady – but she caught it with a smile, unharmed. He sighed in relief.

“Your childish tricks are nothing to a High Priestess of the Old Religion,” she swirled the captured light playfully. “ _Forbærne,_ ” she called, and the light shot at his lord!

Arthur’s mouth dropped open in a wordless scream. His lord tried to dodge, but she was too close. The light hit him square in the chest. He fell, sinking into the water, red trailing behind him.

Arthur stared, shaking. What … what had just …

“Pity,” his lady looked into the spreading red with a small smirk. Arthur shivered; how could she, everything good and pure, be possessed of such cold eyes? “Together we could have ruled the world.”

She turned to the shore, abandoning his lord to the water and reeds. “Come, Arthur,” she beckoned, wading to the lakeshore. When he didn’t follow, she turned back with a frown. “Come,” she repeated sharply.

“You killed him,” Arthur said, unable to fathom what he’d just seen. How could she, the first to look him in the eye, turn on his lord, the first to call his name?

“He would have held us back.” She held out her hand. “Come, Arthur, the future is ours for the taking.”

Arthur stepped back, and suddenly what he had to do was clear.

“Arthur!” she yelled, furious, as he dove beneath the waves.

The lake was murky, the reeds obscuring what little he could see. He reached out blindly, hand knocking into something solid. He curled his finger around it, and he kicked upwards.

He broke the surface, tugging a fistful of white with him. He pulled and his lord’s face emerged. His lord coughed, doubling over and throwing up water. Arthur pounded him on the back, fear like he’d never felt gripping his heart.

“ _You_ ,” his lady hissed from the shoreline. Her face was an angry red. “You would defy me, who has only ever been gracious to you? I gave you _life!_ ”

“You tried to kill him!” Arthur repeated, his own face heating with anger as he gestured to his lord.

“He struck first!” his lady shouted. Arthur paused; his lord had struck first, and yet… why was it that it felt different?

His lord had been angry almost from the beginning, displaying a frightening countenance but… it was different, somehow, to the lady’s anger. There was something more to it – something behind the anger, in the complicated, tortured look in his eyes when they’d met Arthur’s, right before he’d started shouting…

Arthur didn’t know how his lord’s anger was different to his lady’s, only that it was.

Suddenly his lady calmed, shrinking once more into a fragile beauty to cherish. “Arthur, I was only defending myself,” she said, shy - frightened. “It was me or him – it still is. You cannot have us both, you must choose.”

She held out her arms beseechingly, a lady in need of a knight to save her, to take down her attacker for her, sweet and helpless…

Only she wasn’t. She’d already proved that.

Arthur stepped closer to his lord, who straightened to face his lady, fury on his face. The clouds thundered around them. “Arthur,” he said far too calmly, eyes intent on the lady. “Get out of the lake. Go hide somewhere safe.”

“No,” Arthur said. He didn’t know how or what was happening, but he would not run and cower.

“ _Arthur_ ,” his lord growled, but Arthur no longer feared his anger – not when he could hear the gut-wrenching worry beneath.

“Well isn’t this touching!” his lady sneered. “Don’t worry, I’ll send you to Avalon together – _Beswelge!_ ”

The lake shot up around them, closing over them like the maw of a great beast. Arthur kicked towards the light, lungs burning, but he couldn’t seem to get any closer…

An excruciating heat surged, the water bubbling violently around him. Arthur choked out what little air he had left, gasping out in pain, and collapsed onto… sand?

He coughed, choking on air that burned his throat, far too hot and heavy… he blinked around at the clouds of vapour pouring off the patch of sand he and Emrys stood in. As the vapour rose he saw they were surrounded by a ring of fire. Great waves crashed into it and dissipated in futile hisses, but the fire flickered dangerously with each assault. From above, the pouring rain was just as great a threat. Arthur felt a stab of fear; how long could his lord maintain this shield under such conditions?

“ _Heofonfýr, ācwince!_ ” his lord cried, and the sky boomed, lightning flashing down straight through his lady’s head. She teetered, face burnt beyond recognition, and fell into the shallows with a small splash -

The water glowed around her and she got right back up, skin whole and unblemished.

“You’re a fool,” his lady sneered, wiping away blood from a wound she no longer had. “Not even you, Emrys, can go against the Lady in her own Lake!”

She held out an arm to said lake in clear command.

“ _Lagu, bēo þone fuglas!_ ” she cried, and the lake rose up from its bed, twisting in the air into innumerable floating balls of water.

These balls flattened, sprouting two wings and slim bodies, until Arthur was looking up at an army of water birds with beaks sharpened into wicked, icy points. With a melodic cry, they dived for his lord, heading straight through the opening above his ring of fire.

His lord dropped it with a shout, the fire rushing into a solid wall above him. The water birds dove into it, extinguishing large patches in violent hisses. His lord coughed, choking on the resulting vapour trapped beneath the wall. Arthur glanced around wildly, looking for anything that could help. If only he had a sword...

In the great swaths of reeds in the empty lakebed, something glinted.

Arthur broke into a run, dodging a few water birds as he got out from under the fiery shield. But after a few feet his lady seemed to give up on him, the birds reeling back to try and attack his lord from below. A line of large rocks picked themselves up and threw themselves at the birds and the lady.

Arthur fought his way through the tangled reeds to the charred remnants of a boat. It was simple, perhaps a fishing vessel that had met an unfortunate fiery end. In its tiny hull, visible through the great crumbled patches, was the thing glinting with each rogue fiery flare.

He pulled it out and was disappointed to discover it was not a sword, but a chest made of pure crystal. Through the clear prisms something red was visible. Arthur fumbled with the clasp and carefully opened it… and recoiled.

In the middle of the chest, on a silk cushion embossed with a dizzying array of strange symbols, was a still beating human heart.

A terrible shriek came from the shore, and the water birds abruptly changed course and dove for him -

Arthur grabbed the heart, and squeezed.

The birds screeched, falling in a sea of puddles that one by one started refilling the lakebed. Water rose rapidly around him and Arthur kicked, desperate to keep above the surface. When the lake settled, he turned to the shore.

His lady lay crumpled in the shallows, a bloody smear under a large smoking rock. The water lapped at her, its only glow the reflection of fire upon the waves. Her wounds did not heal, and she did not get up again.

His lord approached her warily, as though expecting a trap. He knelt down beside her, placing two fingers to her wrist. Then he straightened, and held out a hand to Arthur, eyes glinting gold. Arthur found himself pushed forward as though by a great wind, landing inelegantly beside his lord, staggering and falling with a splash.

“What did you do?” his lord asked wonderingly, and Arthur explained about the burnt boat and heart in the crystal chest. His lord looked revolted.

“So that’s what she meant about not needing her _whole_ body to be in the lake,” he muttered, eying the pulp Arthur had dropped in the water nauseously. Which, Arthur rather wanted a bar of soap to wash that disgusting feeling off himself, thanks. “Ripping out your heart, though? _Why_ would anyone agree to that? That’s just -” he shook his head, apparently too disgusted for words.

“To think my lady was hiding such a foul heart behind such a fair face,” Arthur grimaced.

His lord turned to him. “Right, we’ve got to do something about that.”

“About what, my lord?”

His lord grimaced. “ _That_.”

“I don’t understand.”

“While I’m relieved you’re not actually being controlled by Nimueh or had your entire personality erased, you’re still…” his lord grimaced again. “Look, what gave you the sudden desire to start calling me your lord?”

Arthur frowned. “I’ve always addressed you thusly, my lord.”

“No, you really haven’t.”

“I have,” Arthur insisted, annoyed. “From the moment I opened my eyes!”

His lord latched on to that. “The moment you opened your eyes?”

“Yes, the start of everything!”

His lord looked at him a long moment, then said slowly, “You mean to tell me that you think you just sprang into being, already fully grown and self-aware, a few minutes ago?”

Arthur frowned. When he put it like that…

“You do realise you’re twenty-one, right? Do you remember _any_ of those years?”

Arthur’s frown deepened. “I remember waking up in the lake,” he said, feeling empty. If his lord was saying was true, then the total of his memories was just a speck in his overall life.

Something else struck him. If he’d lived for twenty-one years then he must have been born a normal baby, and it stood to reason that… “I… have parents, don’t I?” he questioned, trying to remember them. People who’d been with him from his real beginning, his true lord and lady.

Why were Emrys and Nimueh all that came to mind?

“Um, yes,” his lord said. “Do you remember them at all?”

He shook his head.

“So… amnesia?” his lord tilted his head uncertainly. “Damn, I should have brought my book.”

“I could go get it for you,” Arthur offered, eager to have this gaping hole in him filled as soon as possible.

His lord laughed. “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere until we set your head on straight again. Do you have any idea what your father would think if I returned you like this?”

Arthur didn’t have any idea; he took it that it would be very bad.

His lord frowned at the lake. “If the lake washed away your memories it stands to reason they’re still here, in the water somewhere. And amnesia I would think counts as an affliction to be healed.”

He was hesitating, though, something holding him back.

“But?” Arthur prompted.

“But,” his lord sighed, “the only spell I know to harness the healing power in this lake is the one that made you like this in the first place.”

“Oh,” said Arthur, who did not particularly want to forget everything that he knew … again, apparently …

“Intention is key in magic,” his lord hastily explained. “And the spell vague enough I can twist it to my own interpretation of ‘heal’ – I’m pretty sure that’s what Nimueh did in the first place,” he added bitterly. “It should work, but … do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Arthur said at once.

His lord looked oddly hesitant. “It could make you worse,” he warned, as though Arthur were too thick to work that out for himself.

“But it won’t,” he said simply. “Not if it’s you, it won’t.”

His lord’s face turned a rather hilarious shade of pink. Arthur suppressed a laugh as he lowered himself into the water, closing his eyes against the rain. The last thing he heard was his lord, chanting softly beside him.

# / # / #

It was a bit like waking from a particularly vivid dream.

Suddenly things that had been perfectly natural seemed surreal, what had been calmly and unquestioningly accepted became the incredulous. A world that had been fuzzy but bright gained sharp edges layered by degrees of shadow. He almost felt he’d lost something, even as he regained himself.

Arthur opened his eyes, feeling the pouring rain hit his face he peered up into Emrys’ old face twisted in worry. Arthur straightened, face warm at the strange, almost incomprehensible memory of his own behavior under the witch’s curse.

“If you _ever_ tell anyone about today,” Arthur threatened, “I’ll throw you in a sack and dump you in Morgana’s room in the middle of one of her make-over sprees.”

He stomped back to dry land… well, dry-ish. It was still bucketing rain and, oh wonderful, he didn’t even have his cloak.

In fact, Arthur realized, cheeks getting even hotter, he only seemed to be wearing that old nightshirt Gaius would bully him into whenever he was under orders for bedrest. He hated the thing, and never wore it any other time.

So what the devil was he doing out here, with Emrys, only half dressed?! He turned to snap at Emrys, but as he got his first good look at his surroundings while in his right mind, what came out was,

“Where _are_ we?!”

“It’s complicated,” Emrys said wearily. “But technically we’re in the Forest of Bruta.”

Arthur frowned. He routinely patrolled and hunted in the Forest of Bruta, and had never, not once, come upon a lake of this size. But the trees were the right type and age for it, and he couldn’t see why Emrys would lie about something so easy to verify.

“I’ll take you back to the main trail,” Emrys said, hobbling ahead of Arthur surprisingly fast given how slow he’d taken it every other time they’d met. “I trust you can find your own way home from there.”

Arthur hurried after him. Emrys had another thing coming if he thought he was getting out of answering Arthur’s questions just by hurrying him.

“What happened to the Questing Beast?” Arthur demanded.

“You killed it,” Emrys said shortly. “Got yourself bitten like a perfect idiot and nearly died, but don’t worry, your people are safe.”

“Gaius said the bite of the Questing Beast was a death sentence.” He and Merlin had been quite emphatic on the point, as though Arthur could just pick and choose what dangers he had to face to save his people. “One bite, you die, and there’s no cure.”

“There’s not a cure, unless you count the lake that heals every kind of affliction…” Emrys trailed off, perhaps thinking how the lake had “healed” Arthur of the memories “afflicting” him.

That was certainly what Arthur was thinking of, at any rate.

“Who was the witch?”

He’d been wondering ever since the Caves of Balor. She’d had him cornered there and then just left him, saying some tripe about how it wasn’t his destiny to die at her hands, even as she made a pretty good indirect go about it with the giant flesh eating spiders.

“Nimueh,” Emrys said, extremely unhelpfully.

“A friend of yours?” Arthur asked archly, because while she and Emrys had seemed acquainted, that certainly hadn’t stopped them from trying to kill each other.

Arthur had never seen a sorcerer fight another sorcerer before. It was perhaps the most surreal bit of his dreamlike memories; Emrys fighting one of his own for Arthur’s sake.

“Definitely not,” Emrys scowled. “I accepted her help against my better judgement, and was rather unsurprisingly betrayed.” And that was apparently all he was willing to say on that.

They were already approaching the main trail and nowhere near through Arthur’s questions. Still he stopped, frowning at the many blackened trees visible through the blazed tracks. “Was there a forest fire?” he wondered aloud. He didn’t remember anything like that in the official reports.

A dark look crossed Emrys’ face. “Ask your father.”

Arthur started to ask what _that_ meant, but was drowned out by shouts from the trail. Emrys swore, pushing Arthur forward and sprinting in the opposite direction. Arthur stumbled, regaining his balance. A dozen townsmen swarmed him, a dozen more chasing after Emrys with – sticks?

“My lord, you’re alive!” a bald man with a crooked front tooth cried, eyes tearing up in joy.

“Yes?” said Arthur, because why wouldn’t he be – and promptly remembered what Emrys had said about being bitten by the Questing Beast. He looked down at his Gaius-mandated nightshirt, a few questions answered even as many more popped up in their place.

“It’s a miracle!” a man Arthur was fairly certain regularly cheated on his taxes exclaimed.

Arthur wondered if it would hurt his reputation as crown prince and defender of the kingdom to ask random townsfolk what the hell was going on. Screw it, he thought, he was soaking wet in the middle of the woods in nothing but his nightshirt, he might as well go for it.

“Why are you all out here?” he asked, trying to sound like he wasn’t missing as much information as he was.

“Your father ordered a kingdom-wide manhunt for the sorcerer responsible for your kidnapping,” a man with a high wheezy voice volunteered. “No man is to rest until you’re found.”

 _Kidnapping?_ Arthur questioned, wondering if he’d heard right. _Hold on, back up a moment,_ he told himself sternly. _Let’s go slow and start from the beginning…_

He remembered fighting the Questing Beast and a terrible pain in his arm. Emrys said he’d been bitten, and judging from how impressed everyone was at his continued existence, that was true. So he must have fain – _lost consciousness_ from the poison. His men would have brought him to Gaius, whereupon he’d been forced into the horrid piece of clothing he was currently stuck in. Gaius had been quite clear he had no cure, so Arthur had languished in bed long enough for the people to hear he was dying. Apparently Emrys showed up and spirited him away, presumably to the lake of Nimueh the crazy murderous witch, who they’d both implied had healed him but who’d also very obviously did something to his head. From there, his own addled memories kicked in.

He supposed, looking in from the outside, when Emrys took him away it would look like he’d been kidnapped to his people and …

Another odd thing in the man’s words finally clicked. “ _My father?_ ” Arthur repeated, incredulous.

The journey to Tintagel was a five days’ ride. He’d sent a messenger as soon as he’d gotten word of a magical beast terrorizing the countryside, but found its lair himself only two days later. His father shouldn’t have even gotten his message yet, unless… how long had he been out?!

“He’s sparing nothing to save you,” the wheezy voice assured him. “He’ll be overjoyed to hear of your recovery.”

Arthur looked at these men, apparently out looking for him in the middle of a rainstorm, willingly to go up against a sorcerer to get him back. And he felt a warmth for his people suffuse his chest.

There was the sound of people carelessly crashing through undergrowth that made the hunter in Arthur wince, low dispirited voices accompanying them. A moment later the men who’d chased after Emrys re-emerged, a slump both defeated and yet quite relieved to their shoulders.

“Where’s the sorcerer?” the man who probably cheated on his taxes demanded.

“Vanished into thin air,” a man with a nose that looked to have been broken at least twice grunted, throwing his stick to the ground.

“You were going to fight him with sticks?” Arthur asked, amazed at the sheer guts that took. First Lancelot, then the people of Ealdor, now his own people … he vowed to never underestimate the courage of the common man again.

The men who’d gone after Emrys colored. They rubbed awkwardly at the backs of their necks or were suddenly very interested in the ground. “We ran out of pitchforks to go ‘round,” one mumbled, embarrassed by the praise.

Arthur realized he was gaping, and shut his mouth. “Your valor is admirable,” he began, not wanting to disparage their resolve but also not wanting them chasing off after other, non-druid sorcerers armed with nothing but sticks or pitchforks, which honestly weren’t much better considering what Arthur had seen in Ealdor of how people untrained with weapons wielded them. “However, it my duty as your prince to keep you safe, not the other way around. I don’t want any of you putting yourself in harm’s way for me.”

Everyone was now staring at him. “What?” Arthur asked self-consciously, forgetting all his lessons in diplomacy and how to properly address one’s subjects.

“Most nobles expect their people to die for them,” the bald man gaped.

“I’m not most nobles,” Arthur said. “And you haven’t sworn me any pledge. Your lives are too precious to throw away in a fight you can’t win. I implore you to leave it to the knights next time – that’s what they’re trained for.”

Maybe it was the rain, but Arthur could have sworn he saw more than one misty eye. The ground was once more apparently very interesting. Arthur started to feel uncomfortable himself – surely this wasn’t that unusual a sentiment for a prince?

An older man with hair streaked more white than black cleared his throat. “We appreciate your concern, Your Highness, we really do,” he said earnestly. “But you must understand, the king ordered every man capable of bearing arms out hunting down this sorcerer. If in the future he does the same, we’ll have to take up the call, whatever your feelings on it.”

Arthur frowned; he couldn’t believe his father would be so careless with the lives of his own citizens. “I’ll speak to the king,” he assured them. “I’m sure in his desperation at my disappearance, he didn’t stop to consider what would happen to you if you came face to face with a sorcerer.”

The men all looked at each other. “With all due respect,” the old man said, “this isn’t the first time the king has made such a proclamation. Such calls to arms were quite common in the days of the Purge. And many people _did_ die. The king praised their bravery and gave them heroes’ funerals. He presided over them himself to honor their sacrifice in the war against magic.”

Arthur didn’t want to believe such a thing, but the man looked too sincere to doubt. Uther never spoke of the Purge, not in any true detail. He would speak of their triumph over evil and chaos, of how they could never again let the hearts of so many be poisoned as they had been twenty years ago by the black arts, but he never spoke of the things he had done to bring about victory over such powerful opposition.

Arthur wasn’t naïve; he knew that his father had had hundreds of sorcerers killed, that the ones who’d escaped had good reason to want him dead. What he didn’t know was that his father had ordered his own people into unprepared mobs to back very dangerous, very desperate foes into corners. Arthur paled; the losses to their side couldn’t have been light. And they’d been of the people Arthur had sworn to defend – that _Uther_ had sworn to defend.

“That was a long time ago,” he tried to convince himself more than them. “My father has learned much since them. I’ll speak with him, make him see reason. There’s no need to resort to such things against Dragoon.”

“My lord, he kidnapped you,” someone pointed out incredulously.

“Only to heal me,” Arthur said, uncomfortably aware of many disbelieving stares. “He was just showing me back to the trail when we ran into you.”

The men all looked at each other again. “Well, he can control the weather,” the bald man allowed. “I don’t think he’d be scared off by _us_.”

“Wait, he can do what!” Arthur exclaimed, glaring at the sky. “Then why is it still raining!”

If Arthur could control the weather, he’d have ended this rain if not the moment he stepped outside, then at the very least before having a death match with a witch who was practically a water goddess.

“He _made_ it rain,” the bald man told him.

“ _Why_?” Arthur would like to know. He would like to know very much. He hadn’t particularly thought about the rain beyond general annoyance at it, but now that he knew Emrys had purposefully created it he had to question what they were all – Emrys included! – trudging around soaking wet for.

The men all looked to each other _again_. What _now_?

“You’d best ask your father, sire,” the old man said evasively. Arthur frowned. Emrys had said the same thing when he’d asked about the burnt trees…

Arthur’s eyes snapped to the clear evidence of a forest fire. Well, now, that would be a fantastic reason to make it rain. He looked back to the townsmen. They were all carefully not meeting his eyes. Well, tough on them, he wasn’t going to be put off by mere awkwardness, not for a question this dire.

“What happened to the –”

“Besides!” exclaimed one man very loudly, as though deaf to the fact the prince had been speaking. “Just because he healed you, doesn’t mean he did it out of the kindness of his heart. He also kidnapped the Lady Morgana – we can’t trust him.”

“And yet the Lady Morgana was back within two days,” Arthur pointed out.

The men smiled at him. “You rescued her,” one said admiringly, as though he thought Arthur was being modest in not mentioning his involvement.

Arthur felt very uncomfortable. He did not like to get credit he hadn’t earned. “Hardly. Emr - Dragoon flew up, booted Morgana off his carpet, and flew away again. I didn’t do a thing.”

The men frowned. “Why would he do that?” said the man who definitely cheated on his taxes, there was that scar from the time he’d tried to run past Arthur with a broken chair as a shield and tripped!

“Well, he came to break the people who’d consorted with sorcerers out of gaol,” the bald man said. “Maybe he realized she’d done no such thing and wanted to be rid of her.”

“Or he realized he bit off a bigger bite than he could chew,” the man with the broken nose put in. “The king was leaving no stone unturned then too.”

“Then why kidnap the prince right after?” rebutted the bald man, apparently offended to have his theory challenged. “You’d think he’d learn his lesson, if that were the case!”

“Sorcerers,” the old man shook his head with an air of one who had seen much of the world. “Never try to apply logic to them. It’s an exercise in frustration.”

The men around gave a murmur of agreement. As though satisfied with that as an explanation, they turned to go back to the city. Arthur followed, not sure he was willing to brush everything aside with just that.

# / # / #

The gate guards sent word ahead of him, so when Arthur drew near the palace his father was waiting just inside the overhang for him, Morgana standing a step behind him to the left. At the sight of Arthur’s approach, Uther ran out to meet him, right into the pouring rain.

“Arthur!” he called, putting his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and staring into his eyes as though terrified to find there’d been some mistake, this was someone else and his son still dying far from him.

Arthur froze as his father pulled him into a tight embrace. “I thought I’d lost you,” Uther breathed into his hair. Arthur felt a suspicious prickling in his eyes.

After a moment Uther pulled away, putting an arm around Arthur’s shoulder as he led him back into the castle. “Come, let’s get you warmed up.”

A servant passed him a towel and full-length cloak in the entranceway. Arthur got the worst of the rain off himself and immediately donned the cloak, grateful not to have to walk through the whole castle in just his nightshirt. The men who’d found him had offered him one of their cloaks, but he hadn’t wanted to expose them to the cold and rain like that and made up some rubbish about enduring the elements being part of his knight training to gracefully refuse. He was more than happy to fasten his own cloak around himself though, reveling in its fur lined warmth.

“I’ve sent for a quick meal,” Uther said, beginning towards the private banquet hall, Arthur following beside him. “Only simple fare, but Gaius says that’s what’s best for you right now. We can save the feasts for when we’ve all had time to recover from today.”

Uther smiled at him as though in awe of Arthur’s sheer existence. Arthur smiled back, feeling very self-conscious under his father’s unrelenting attention. It almost seemed like Uther didn’t dare take his eyes off Arthur, in case he vanished the moment he stopped looking.

“I can’t believe you’re alive,” Uther marveled. “You must tell me how you escaped.”

Arthur’s smile faded as he considered the difficulty of getting his father to believe him.

“I didn’t,” he admitted awkwardly. Uther frowned, clearly unable to envision any other way Arthur and ‘Dragoon’ could have parted ways. “Father – Dragoon didn’t kidnap me. He only wanted to heal me. He took me to a lake, to a witch named Nimueh –”

“ _Nimueh!_ ” Uther uttered the name with a horror Arthur hadn’t known him capable of. Startled, Arthur realized that his father was legitimately frightened. Arthur had never seen his father afraid of anything before.

Uther pulled him to a halt, staring deep into Arthur’s eyes with a wild, almost crazed look in his own. “What did she do? What did she say to you?” he demanded in a rush.

“That –” Arthur suddenly didn’t want to have to explain he’d been enchanted out of his mind when he had no way to prove he was back in it now. “She healed me, but then tried to kill me and Dragoon, saying something about ruling the world.”

Alright, maybe Arthur was leaving out enough that he was lying by omission to his king, but this was going to be a difficult enough conversation without getting into the brainwashing or the intricacies of whatever Emrys and Nimueh’s relationship was that Arthur still didn’t understand.

He continued his attempt to explain a situation he hadn’t been in his right mind when he’d undergone. “Then we teamed up and killed her, and Dragoon led me back to the trail.” He considered his father’s white, horrified face. “Do you know her?” he couldn’t help but wonder.

Uther seemed to struggle for a moment. At last he spat out, “It was she who killed your mother.”

Arthur’s insides felt like ice. He’d always been told that a witch had killed his mother, opening his father’s eyes to the evils of sorcery. He’d always assumed his mother’s murderer had been the first casualty of the Purge, though. It had never occurred to him she was still alive.

“Well, we killed her.” He’d avenged his mother, even if he hadn’t realized it at the time.

Uther squeezed his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.” Arthur’s insides warmed. It was so rare for him to hear that.

Uther resumed his brisk stride. “So, this Dragoon was in league with Nimueh,” he said, a dark promise for what this meant for him next Uther saw him.

Arthur felt a jolt of fear for the old druid; frustrating as he was, Arthur owed him.

“I – really didn’t get that impression,” he hastened to explain, despite his own bafflement at just what had been going on between the two sorcerers. “I think it was a temporary alliance that went badly. If it hadn’t been for Dragoon’s help against her, I wouldn’t be here.”

Arthur was under no illusion he could have taken Nimueh in a direct fight. Particularly as he’d been madly besotted with her and unarmed.

Uther slowed. He was peering at Arthur closely. “Why are you defending him?”

Arthur paused; to be sure from the outside looking in it would appear very strange, and yet… how _couldn’t_ Arthur defend him, when Emrys had done more for him for less reason? Arthur was well aware Emrys had nothing to gain by breaking into Uther Pendragon’s stronghold to take his son to be healed. Why should he risk himself for a prince who’d last tried to arrest him, and before that pseudo-banished him from Ealdor…

Arthur felt a stab of guilt at the thought that he might very well have forced Emrys to flee his home. He hadn’t wanted that, he’d just wanted him gone. Out of sight, out of mind. If he didn’t have to think of him, he didn’t have to think of all the questions he brought up or the fact that Arthur just plain didn’t understand him.

But not thinking on him hadn’t made him go away.

And Arthur still didn’t understand him – actually, he now understood him _less_ than before. True, Emrys had rather definitively proven he wasn’t trying to manipulate Arthur in some convoluted nefarious plan – there could be no better opportunity for that than when Arthur was already bewitched to listen to him at the lake. But Emrys hadn’t taken it – had gone up against a High Priestess to _undo_ the bewitchment, in fact. And while technically Emrys could still have some elaborate master plan in mind, Arthur couldn’t even fathom what it would be or what goal it could possibly have. But that was only what Emrys _wasn’t_ trying to do, and what he _didn’t_ want. Arthur still didn’t understand what he wanted or why he’d go to such lengths to save Arthur from death and enslavement.

And if he didn’t understand it himself, he definitely wouldn’t be able to make his father understand.

“He saved my life,” Arthur simply said instead.

“By turning on Nimueh – for his own reasons, you must realize,” Uther frowned.

“No, it’s not just that,” Arthur insisted, struggling to articulate why he felt so strongly about this in a way his father would understand. Why he couldn’t let Uther put Emrys in the same category as his mother’s murderer. “He healed me.”

His father looked nonplussed. “You said Nimueh healed you.”

“They both healed me,” Arthur amended. It was technically correct, even if it hadn’t happened simultaneously as he was implying. “Father, please, without him I’d be dead several times over. Couldn’t you just let him go, this once?”

Uther stopped again, leaning in uncomfortably close to stare into Arthur’s eyes. He was frowning, and looking quite dangerous. He couldn’t seem to find what he was looking for, for he backed away and looked over his shoulder.

“Morgana,” he called, and Arthur noticed with a start that she was behind them. She must have been trailing along since the outer courtyard. What the - ? Since when was she so silent! Normally she’d be the first one arguing for mercy for Emrys. “Is Arthur under any mind-altering enchantments?”

A million started, alarmed thoughts warred in Arthur’s head. What came out was, “How would _she_ know?”

“No,” Morgana said, looking a bizarre mix of terrified and confused, with her usual heap of righteous anger.

Which, now that Arthur had time to think on it, he was rather angry himself at having his heartfelt appeal dismissed as the result of an enchantment. He was glad he hadn’t brought up whatever Nimueh did to him. Clearly, it had been the right decision.

Uther nodded as though satisfied. At Arthur and even Morgana’s questioning look, he gestured to her, “Heaven has smiled on us in our fight against the evils of sorcery. Morgana has been gifted with the ability to predict our enemies’ next moves. She was given a vision from god of your upcoming fate which allowed me to return in time to counteract this Dragoon.” Uther shook his head regretfully. “If only I had believed from the beginning, I could have prevented everything.”

Arthur looked at Morgana askance. “You had a vision?” he asked skeptically. He would believe it when she said it herself.

“I had a dream,” she refuted vehemently. “I panicked and confused it with reality. It was only a dream!”

“Nonsense, Morgana, you demanded we ride back to Camelot at one in the morning,” Uther smiled encouragingly at her. “You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t believe what you saw.”

“It was only a dream!” she insisted. Not that Arthur could blame her. Visions sounded rather, well, rather magical. He wouldn’t want to be accused of having them either, even if his father was being surprisingly accepting of it.

“And you’re alright with this?” he asked his father cautiously, not wanting him to turn against Morgana but wanting very much to understand.

Uther was smiling at Morgana like she was his own daughter who’d displayed a particularly impressive gift. “There are many powers in this world greater than magic,” he turned to Arthur with an air of wisdom. “Why, one saved you today!”

It was magic that saved him, but his father was clearly not going to accept that. Arthur let the topic drop in defeat; if his father was convinced Morgana was having visions of the future, it was best to let him keep believing them divine rather than magical in nature.

Uther led them into the private banquet hall. The table was set for one of their family dinners, fire roaring bright in the hearth. Servants waited with full platters of food and drink. Arthur frowned as he took his seat; Merlin was missing.

 _Not again_ , Arthur thought in annoyance. And just when Merlin had gotten back from being ‘sick’ too!

Uther gestured for the servants to bring wine, and raised his glass. “A toast, to Arthur’s recovery and Morgana’s gift, and god’s favour upon the Pendragon dynasty!”

Arthur and Morgana raised their glasses and drank. The wine tasted very bitter.

Uther led most of the conversation, Arthur and Morgana only chipping in when specifically called on. Arthur didn’t know about Morgana, but he was still far too wound up by the events of the day for polite small talk.

Suddenly, he remembered a question that multiple people had deferred to Uther to answer. “Father, I was wondering…” he began hesitantly, wondering how to phrase this.

“Yes?” Uther said absently, focused on carving up the last of his honey glazed grouse.

“What happened to the forest?”

Uther set down his knife, looking up to meet Arthur’s eyes. “A king,” he began with the solemnity he used for state affairs, “must sometimes do things he rather wouldn’t, make sacrifices he doesn’t want to, for the greater good.”

Arthur felt a chill that had little to do with his still wet clothes. “What has this to do with the forest?”

“Today, I was faced with one such impossible choice,” Uther continued gravely. “I could spare my land terrible destruction today, or I could let an even more terrible threat escape to bring greater destruction on her tomorrow. I knew, however tempting it may seem, I couldn’t choose the latter. I must be strong, and do the former.”

Arthur’s knife fell to his plate with a clatter. It couldn’t be…

“When Dragoon escaped through the sky, my options were limited,” the stranger in his father’s face was saying. “We confirmed before, with Morgana, that pursuit on foot is in vain. Arrows proved similarly ineffective today. However, there is one thing that not even flying above the earth one can escape: the very air itself.”

“What are you saying?” Arthur breathed, willing this man to explain away Arthur’s mad thoughts, to turn back to someone recognizable as the father Arthur had always admired again.

“I had our catapults fire flaming missiles in a strategic spread into the forest. Smoke rose high  above the trees almost immediately. If all had gone to plan, the sorcerer would have been cut off. He would have had to turn back, and when he did we would be ready for him.” Uther’s face grew dark. “Never did I dream such a monster still existed.”

Arthur stared at his father a few moments. “You started a forest fire,” he repeated, tasting the words on his own lips. He waited to be contradicted, told he’d misunderstood something.

Uther breathed out heavily. “It was regrettable, but I was left without choice.”

Arthur shook. “You just said it; you _had_ another choice.”

“I couldn’t let him take you!”

Arthur pushed back his chair. “I told you, he saved my life!” he shouted, slamming his hands down on the table. “If you’d just listened to him, you wouldn’t have _had_ to do anything!”

Uther stared at him in devastation. He turned again to Morgana. “Are you positive he’s not been enchanted?” he asked quietly, as though in the presence of a gravely ill person.

“He says nothing that is not his own words,” she said, not looking up from her hardly touched plate, which she was abnormally engrossed by.

Uther seemed less inclined to take her words for it this time. “Perhaps this Dragoon’s power is beyond even your god-given sight to perceive.” He narrowed his eyes at Arthur. “My son would not say such a thing.”

“Yes, I would!” retorted Arthur. “And my father would not harm his own kingdom! He has told me all my life how a king is to protect his kingdom to his dying breath, how he has a duty to the people – how could you have thrown that all away over some sorcerer!”

“If you cannot answer that, then perhaps you are not fit to be king!” Uther also rose to his feet. He gestured to the guards, who strode forwards. “You’re not in your right mind, Arthur. I’m afraid I can’t let you go free.”

Arthur felt the guards’ hands close over his arms, drawing them behind his back. His eyes burned against his father. “You can’t do this to me!”

Uther looked on Arthur in tortured regret. “Gaius will know what afflicts you but for now, this is all we can do. I’m sorry, my son. You’ll understand when we break this spell on you. It’s for your own good. Dragoon is the enemy of the people; we cannot let him use you as a pawn in his schemes.”

Morgana suddenly stood up.

“I See – !” she proclaimed, staring upwards as though through the roof and into the very heavens. “I See Dragoon, in a cave of glowing stones. He is alone, laughing above a mirror showing our faces. ‘My scheme has worked,’ he cries. ‘Without even needing to use my magic, I have divided the Pendragons! I have sown confusion in the prince’s heart, turning his own honor against him by tricking him into believing himself indebted to me – tricked him into thinking that I’d saved him. _I_ , save _him_ , from the poison of the very monster I had Nimueh create before usurping her! With the witch out of the way, I shall rule the world! For the Pendragons will soon be no more, Uther locking away his own son as my final, crippling blow against them! Camelot shall be the first to fall, divided from within! I have set son against father and father against son, as Uther once did to my people twenty years ago… At long last, I shall have my revenge!’”

Arthur looked at Morgana incredulously. There was no way anyone would just proclaim every detail of their secret plot so conveniently to an empty cave. How she expected anyone to buy this rubbish, he didn’t know.

Uther leaned in. “Where is this cave?”

“In a kingdom far, far from here,” Morgana made a great sweeping gesture to the distance. Despite her solemn face, Arthur would eat his goblet if she wasn’t secretly enjoying herself.

“Which kingdom?” Uther demanded urgently, hand drifting to his sword as though readying himself to personally lead an assault against it.

Morgana put a hand to her head. “The strain of channeling the Divine has left me weak and enfeebled. I can See no further. I must retire to my chambers, and recover my strength.”

Uther nodded. “It’s been a long day, we should all retire. Have whatever you wish sent up to your rooms.” He turned to Arthur. “Guards, release him!”

The hands on his arms fell away. Uther approached him, laying a hand on his shoulders. “Arthur, I apologize for my words. My anger got the better of me.” He squeezed Arthur’s shoulders. “Truly, I am glad you are safe.”

Arthur was not so ready to forgive. “And yet you give no credit to the one who saved me.”

“Dragoon merely pretended he held the key to your salvation and tricked you, as all of his kind do,” Uther looked at him with sad wisdom. “It’s difficult to accept you could have been so blind at first, but soon it will start to sink in. I’ll leave you alone for now. When you are ready, come find me, and I will help you bear this burden. We shall teach this ‘Dragoon the Great’ of what happens to those who strike against our kingdom – he shall be flogged, then burnt at the stake. He’ll never get you again.”

Giving Arthur one last sad, knowing look, Uther turned to go.

Arthur brushed past him with bad grace, fleeing the table where nothing made sense. It was like someone had taken his family and twisted it ever so slightly, so on the surface they appeared the same but underneath were all wrong. His father a paranoid tyrant, Morgana a false prophet … and him, the only sane man left in a madhouse.

He trudged back to his chambers through the cold stone corridors still only in his damp nightshirt and cloak and in a foul temper. He threw open the door to his chambers, startling the tall skinny figure mopping his floors. He opened his mouth to lay into his servant, demanding where he’d _been_ at that disaster of a dinner… and closed it as he got a closer look at the figure mopping.

It wasn’t Merlin.

“Who are you?” Arthur asked the tall skinny _woman_ mopping his floors.

“Mary, my lord.” When he kept staring, trying to place her, she added, “A chambermaid.”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Um,” she glanced down at the mop in her hands and back up at him. “Mopping?” she said like one worried about his eyesight.

“I can see that. Why?”

She looked baffled. “It’s Thursday.”

“What?”

“We clean the chambers of the West Tower on Thursday, when the king holds council and we’re not in anyone’s way. But today the king threw me out of your chambers after your disappearance and barred anyone from entering until news of your return, so I’m afraid I’m behind schedule. My deepest apologies for the inconvenience.”

Considering Arthur hadn’t expected his chambers cleaned any sooner than the next time Merlin could be bothered to, he wasn’t really in any way inconvenienced. More, he was confused by this strange woman in his chambers acting like she’d always been there when he’d _never_ seen her before.

He had no desire to deal with any more confusion on top of an already more than confusing day. “You can go, Mary,” he said rubbing his head. “Merlin will do the mopping.”

She looked as though she thought she’d heard him wrong, but still hesitantly, obediently, picked up her mop and pail. She made for the door, glancing at Arthur over her shoulder as though he were about to yell, _kidding_ , and tell her to get back to work. With one more uncertain glance, she closed the door.

From the other side, Arthur could have sworn he heard a confused mutter of _but that’s_ my _job_ over the receding footsteps. He stood frowning at the door, thrown off by this latest bizarre thing in his very bizarre day. It was at least not a painful puzzle, unlike the others.

A few minutes later the door opened and Merlin slipped through. “Who’s Mary?” Arthur asked immediately.

Merlin looked equally perplexed. “Who?”

“Mary.”

“Who’s Mary?”

“That’s what I’m asking you!”

“Arthur, I know like twenty people called Mary. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“She was in here a minute ago, cleaning because it’s Thursday… you know what, never mind, it doesn’t matter.” Merlin stared at him in confusion, dripping shamelessly onto the just-mopped floor. Arthur frowned. “Why are you so wet?”

“You’re one to talk,” Merlin shot back, nodded at Arthur’s still drying hair and nightshirt.

“I was dunked repeatedly in a lake and had to walk back in bucketing rain. What’s your excuse?”

Merlin pursed his lips, and didn’t answer.

A horrible thought occurred to Arthur – every man was to hunt down Emrys, the townsmen in the woods had said. Had _Merlin_ been out hunting for Emrys? Arthur shivered. True, he was fairly sure by now that Emrys had no ill intent, and Merlin had seemed to get on with him well enough that time with Mordred and then again in his home village, but the thought of Merlin having to go up against a powerful sorcerer…

Merlin started towards the fireplace, but his wet boots slid on the wet floor. He whirled his arms to try and catch himself, and failed pathetically. A second later he was sprawled on his bottom groaning, having somehow managed to not just trip himself but also whack himself in the face with his own arm in his failure to regain the sad mess that passed for his balance.

“Owww…” Merlin groaned, clutching his head. Normally Arthur would be making a snide comment right about now, but this time it didn’t seem funny.

God, Arthur was glad Merlin hadn’t gone up against any sorcerer today.

“Just get the fire going, Merlin,” said Arthur, deciding to generously let him skive off the cleaning Arthur had told Mary he’d do (it’s not like Arthur wasn’t used to uncleaned chambers). “And bring me something dry to wear.”

Merlin got to his feet with one last groan, shuffling carefully over to the fireplace. He skidded a few times but managed to get there without tripping again. Arthur brought his chair closer and settled into it as Merlin poked at the little yellow bursts licking at the kindling, trying to get the logs to catch. He coughed – which, _how_ , there was barely any smoke! – and then had to leap back, as the whole log was suddenly enveloped in roaring flames. Must have been a burst of wind, Arthur thought, closing his eyes in bliss. Ah, sweet warmth.

Arthur just sat like that, allowing himself to dry and listening contentedly to the sounds of Merlin puttering about his chambers, keen for a distraction from everything. Soon enough they ceased, though. He heard the sound of a chair being pushed over to the fireplace.

“Share some of that heat with me,” Merlin joked, setting the chair across from Arthur’s.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” Arthur asked. Not that he really cared, but with Merlin you could never be too lenient. If Arthur gave him an inch, he’d skive off for entire days and show up looking criminally offended at any question of where he’d been and why he hadn’t come to work since Tuesday.

They’d even gone through one such song-and dance last week, when Arthur had had to trudge all the way to Gaius’ quarters demanding to know where his servant was and Gaius had fed him some cock-and-bull story about Merlin coming down with the horrible, rare, highly contagious Rumpflack Fever. Apparently it was spread through the very air the invalid breathed so, no, Arthur couldn’t open his door to check, and no, Gaius couldn’t say when Merlin would be better, these things take time, sire, best just let him sleep it off. Arthur had his suspicions, but they weren’t quite strong enough to risk some unknown plague that Gaius claimed had no remedy but time. Arthur had let them have it, that time, though sure enough Merlin had eventually showed up back at work practically glowing with health and no indication that he had ever been sick, looking quite offended as Arthur loaded him with everything he’d skived off on at once.

Merlin was giving him that same offended look right now, as though Arthur was so ungrateful for everything Merlin did for him. This despite the fact that Merlin had showed up after his master, not having prepared Arthur’s chambers for his arrival at all, and did maybe ten minutes of work before deciding to take a break.

Honestly, he was lucky Arthur liked him. For some reason.

“Any work that’s waiting for me will have to just wait until I’m dry,” Merlin rebuffed, warming his hands by the fire.

“You’re drying well enough,” Arthur pointed out. Better than Arthur, even. He supposed all that activity must have evaporated the water. Perhaps Arthur should jog in place, to speed up his own return to dryness.

Merlin spared him a look, but let it go. He leaned back in his chair, eying Arthur up and down like one assessing, well, someone who until a few hours ago had been dying. “How are you feeling?”

Arthur frowned, everything he’d momentarily been able to forget coming back to him. The problem was he was feeling too many things to name just one.

But if he went about it purely physically, then, “Like I was never ill.”

Anyone else would have been satisfied by that as a proper response, and let the topic change. But Merlin leaned in, clearly hearing evasion in those words. He didn’t say anything, just waited for Arthur to continue.

“My father had the people out looking for Emrys,” Arthur sighed. He hadn’t had the opportunity to bring the issue up with his father what with everything else, and he was no longer so confident Uther would see his side of it. It felt like his father had turned into a stranger, one Arthur wasn’t sure he liked.

“I noticed,” Merlin said dryly. Arthur felt another stab of fear at the thought of Merlin as one of those people, armed with a stick against Emrys – or worse, _Nimueh_. He could see it now, Merlin tripping over his stick and staring up from the ground in wide-eyed fear, helpless against Nimueh and her cruel powers.

The thought of Nimueh and Emrys only depressed Arthur further.

“He flat out refused to believe what I’d seen with my own eyes. He has some weird theory about Morgana seeing the future.”

“Wait, he has _what_?” Merlin looked suddenly terrified.

“Surely you don’t believe that tripe,” Arthur scoffed.

Anyone could see that there was nothing mystic about Morgana’s regular nightmares – or, indeed, the melodramatic performances she apparently had decided to start engaging in. But then, Merlin could be rather superstitious at times.

Such as now, apparently. Every muscle was tensed as though he was one word around from springing from his chair and out the room. “What did he do to her,” Merlin asked as though afraid of the answer.

“Aside from come about two seconds away from appointing her Court Prophetess? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Merlin repeated with the air of one who couldn’t bring himself to believe such impossibly good news.

“Well, he toasted her _gifts_ ,” Arthur rolled his eyes at the word.

Merlin sank back in his chair, “So he’s not going to burn Morgana at the stake?”

“What? No! Why would he burn her, she’s not a witch!”

Merlin just looked at Arthur for a moment. “And if it hadn’t been Morgana, but Gwen who claimed to have supernatural visions?”

Arthur paused. That… he didn’t want to think on that. Guinevere had come dangerously closed to burning for something she hadn’t even done, and her father _had_ been killed for a crime he might not have meant to commit. Not to mention all those shopkeepers that (thankfully) Emrys had made off with just before their mass execution…

He didn’t want to think of all the innocent who’d been sentenced to death.

 _Just like Emrys_ , a treacherous voice in his head whispered. And he was right back to where he started.

“My father has declared Emrys an enemy of the people,” he told Merlin, getting up out of his chair to pace, too agitated to remain still.

“Hm,” Merlin replied noncommittally, curiously cagey all of a sudden.

“He’s ordered him flogged and then burnt at the stake.”

“Hm.”

“He called him a monster.”

“Hm.”

“Even though I _told_ him Emrys saved my life!”

“Hm.”

Arthur stopped in front of Merlin. “It’s not fair!”

Merlin got out of his chair and put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Welcome to reality,” he said with faux solemnity.

Arthur placed his hands over his eyes. He felt like he would cry. “Everything’s such a mess.”

“Some people have to live their entire lives in this mess,” Merlin pointed out unsympathetically.

That… just the _thought_ of having to deal with these injustices, of being this torn up inside every day -! Arthur couldn’t truly imagine. And yet Merlin was right, some people did have to live with it. The druids… Emrys…

“It’s not fair,” he repeated. _It’s not just_ , he meant. And that stung, because justice was one of Camelot’s pillars, one of the core beliefs his father had always taught him to uphold. He didn’t want to believe Uther had failed at it so badly himself.

Arthur felt Merlin’s arm shrug. “It’s life.”

Arthur opened his eyes. “Why are you being so –” Arthur failed to think of the right word.

“Because you need it,” Merlin replied as though he’d grasped the thoughts Arthur couldn’t put to words. He asked again. “So how _are_ you feeling?”

Arthur knew he did not mean physically.

“Terrible,” Arthur admitted quietly. “Like I don’t know what to believe.”

To his surprise, Merlin smiled. “You’ll get there, someday.”

He seemed unnaturally cheered all of a sudden. Mind this was Merlin, who was often smiling idiotically, but even so, this was a particularly incongruous reaction.

“What’re you so happy about?” Arthur snapped.

Merlin shook his head, wiping that smile off his face. Something of it lingered in his eyes, though. “Nothing,” he denied, eyes still very bright and … proud? … as he looked at a baffled Arthur. “Just… have you ever had one of those moments, where you know you made the right decisions in life?”

Arthur wished. “My own father was just questioning if I’m out of my mind,” he said. Despite his current anger towards Uther, his father’s disappointment still stung.

“Arthur, no offense, but your father lit his own land on fire.” Merlin seemed personally affronted by this, like this was some kind of direct attack against him. “I don’t think I’m the only one questioning if _he’s_ out of _his_ mind.”

Arthur shifted uncomfortably at another reminder of the lengths his father had gone in his personal crusade against magic.

“Lucky Emrys could put it out.” Even as he said it, though, Arthur frowned in annoyance at his still shriveled fingertips. It seemed petty after everything Emrys had done for him today, but, “I just wish he’d put out the rain after it served its purpose.”

Merlin fidgeted. “Maybe he doesn’t know how?” he suggested stupidly.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “If he can make it rain, I’m sure he can stop the rain,” Arthur explained in exasperation. Honestly, the things Merlin said! “I bet he’s one of those people who _likes_ stomping around in puddles – that, or he cares more about annoying my father than running about the woods soaking wet.”

Arthur deflated at this reminder of his father. He just kept coming back to him.

“He told me I’m unfit to be king.” Arthur confessed, terrified that perhaps he was right.

Not about Emrys, obviously, but if it _had_ been a non-druid sorcerer making off with the heir to the throne … Arthur didn’t think he had the unflinching nerve to order his own lands sacrificed, even to save more of them in the future. The very thought made him sick to his stomach.

And yet… the people in the woods hadn’t complained about it. Nor about being sent out against a powerful sorcerer. They had seemed to expect no less from their king. Arthur shivered. Was that how a king was supposed to be? Would they expect the same of him, when the day came for him to take up his father’s throne?

Arthur hunched inwards; he felt more terrified of that day than ever before.

Merlin laid a hand on his shoulder again, gentler this time. Arthur looked up to see Merlin looking at him with concern. As their eyes met, Merlin gave him a faint, encouraging smile.

“Your father has his own ideas of what a king should be,” said Merlin with an air of wisdom that shouldn’t have fit him yet – somehow – did. “One day, you’ll have to decide if you want to be his kind of king, or your own kind.”

Arthur didn’t like that. He’d always aspired to be like his father: strong, decisive, _just._ Loved by his subjects and feared by his enemies. Setting a sound, steady rule of law to prosper and protect the kingdom, under which his people could thrive. His father had been his greatest role-model.

Yet today alone there were many things that Arthur couldn’t agree with him on. And it hadn’t just been today; recently, Arthur seemed to find himself disagreeing with his father more and more. So many instances came to mind. If Arthur had been the king…

He couldn’t have let Merlin drink Nimueh’s poison, or refused to send men for the cure. He couldn’t have exiled Lancelot. He couldn’t have refused Ealdor aid. He couldn’t have ordered Mordred’s execution, or Tom the blacksmith’s, or those shopkeepers’, or Guinevere’s. He couldn’t have set the forest on fire. He couldn’t have ordered his people to attack a man who had proved he had enough power to control the weather, armed with nothing more than force of numbers and sticks.

“I … don’t think I can be like my father,” Arthur said the awful, damning words aloud.

“Well, good,” Merlin said with startling vehemence. “You shouldn’t have to be. Frankly, I don’t _want_ you to be.”

“Everyone else does.”

“Everyone else wants to live under the rule of a man who sends them against sorcerers and burns down his own forest?”

Arthur paused. _He_ certainly wouldn’t want to live under such a man. But the fact remained… “The people love my father.” He’d seen it with his own eyes. Never questioned why, until today.

“That doesn’t mean they love everything he does.”

Arthur considered this. He thought suddenly of how touched the men in the woods had been, on being told not to endanger themselves for him. The acknowledgement that their lives matter. The way they’d believed him just like that when he told them what had happened, even if they’d had trouble fitting it into their worldviews.

Again, warmth towards his people stirred in his chest.

“Do you think the people would follow me, even if I’m not like my father?” he dared ask. “Do you think they’d still believe in me?”

“I believe in you.” Merlin said simply, and gave Arthur’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “You’ll be a great king, Arthur. I know you will.” He let go and turned away, picking up a pair of woolen socks. “Now, are you going to actually put on all these clothes I got out for you?”

Arthur couldn’t help it; that last bit was so unexpected, he laughed. A great warmth, like the fire Merlin had built for him or the soft woolen clothes he helped Arthur into, filled him, chasing away the last of the cold.

 _This_ was why he put up with Merlin despite the insolence and skiving. Everyone, Arthur thought with a fond smile, needed a Merlin in their life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in the legends, the Lady in the Lake is Nimueh. Also there’s two of them.
> 
> Poor Merlin. He’s gotten so used to doing whatever he wants as an old man that he’s gotten careless. Just because no one knows to apply the consequences of his actions to him doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences. I mean, sweetie, Uther started the Purge because his wife was taken from him, maybe don’t make him think you’ve kidnapped his son and daughter?
> 
> Uther, you and your inability to recognise blatantly magical things.
> 
> I noticed the show seems to switch back and forth between such expressions as “thank god!” and “thank the gods” on a pretty even basis. I figure that Camelot used to have a huge foot in the Old Religion back before it was, you know, illegal. And then Uther made a few half-hearted attempts to fill the massive religious vacuum the Purge created with that new(ish)fangled Christianity from the old empire (Rome). But ultimately not being all that religious (except in terms of things like Divine Right or anything that will back up the beliefs he already has) he never really went all the way with a religious revolution, and now Camelot is a hodge-podge of religious beliefs thrown into a melting pot and churned out into something neither religion would recognise as their own.
> 
> In other news, this is the end of Season 1, thanks for reading! 
> 
> I’ll be going on hiatus while I write Season 2, but I’ll upload a short interlude tying up a few loose ends from Season 1 soon-ish, and another interlude chapter just before I’m ready to post Season 2. In the meantime, if you ever want to make sure I haven’t abandoned this or died, I'll update my profile every time I finish-ish a chapter (though I don’t really write in a linear fashion, so even though I say I’m “finished” I’m usually still changing things – for instance, my original first two chapters were quite different from the version you got, being, well, two chapters instead of one.)
> 
> Thanks again for reading this far, and I’ll see you next time with the season-one-loose-ends interlude!


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